Everyone agrees that proper nutrition is crucial to the maintenance of a healthy body. However, many healthcare practitioners overlook the true cause of many nutritional disorders. It is assumed, quite mistakenly, that digestion occurs automatically and the correction of a nutritional disorder simply requires matching the right nutritional supplement to the condition.

For example, vitamin C for colds, vitamin A for viruses and herbal laxatives for constipation. While this treatment may relieve patient symptoms, the relief is only temporary because the underlying problem of faulty digestion is ignored. To effectively manage health problems that are related to nutritional imbalances we must consider each person’s ability to digest food. Unfortunately, many clinicians give little or no thought to the role of enzymes in digestion, despite overwhelming evidence of their importance.

Enzymes are present in all living animal and plant cells. They are the primary motivators of all natural biochemical processes. Life cannot exist without enzymes because they are essential components of every chemical reaction in the body. For example, they are the only substance that can digest food and make it small enough to pass through the gastrointestinal mucosa into the bloodstream. Three very broad classifications of
enzymes are:

• Food enzymes – occur in raw food and, when present in the diet, they begin the process of digestion
• Digestive enzymes – produced by the body to break food into particles small enough to be carried across the gut wall.
• Metabolic enzymes – produced by the body to perform various complex biochemical reactions

Stucky chiropractors are trained in nutritional counseling and are available to help you evaluate your digestive needs.