The importance of enzymes in digestive processes has been on everyone’s lips in recent decades. They are responsible for proper metabolism; they contribute to all the body’s systems’ nutrition, and they are mainly produced by our digestive tracts. But still, sometimes we need more enzymes than we produce to maintain healthy digestion. In this case, the pharmaceutical market offers various enzyme-based products, under various brands, and with different concentrations of enzymes.
However, simply choosing the first product on the shelf is a bad strategy. Let’s consider what stands beyond the labeling of enzyme products, and what to look for on their labels.
Why Digestive Enzyme Labels Can Be Confusing
The first difficulty consumers face when choosing digestive enzymes is their concentration in the product. While most medications have their active components calculated in mg, for enzymes, producers use quite a different metric system, which varies from region to region.
This occurs because digestive enzymes’ efficiency depends not on a certain dosage of an agent but on its ability to break down a certain amount of food. Just a simple example: you can get two different pancreatine-based products with the concentration of the active compound at 500 mg. Yet, one of them can contain highly purified active enzymes, and another – low-quality or poorly purified ones, which makes the last one less effective.
What Enzyme Activity Units Actually Tell You
Enzyme activity units vary from region to region. Typically, the following metric systems are used for them:
- Ph. Eur. U./FIP – European international standards that show the activity of enzyme units.
- USP – American standard for pancreatin-based enzymes.
- FCC – an international system for microbial and plant-based enzymes.
They are not totally equal, as for various digestive enzymes, the capability of breakdown varies. For example, let’s take three animal-derived enzymes: lipase, amylase, and protease. Each of them is responsible for the breakdown of a specific type of food molecule: fat, carbs, and proteins.
1 FIP of lipase is equal to 1 USP, and this means that 1 FIP unit of lipase can break down approximately 0.31 micrograms (0.00031 milligrams) of pure fat (triglycerides) per minute.
1 FIP of amylase is roughly equal to 4.15 USP, and 1 FIP of protease is roughly equal to 62.5 USP.
Understanding Multi-Enzyme Formulations
Typically, we need all three digestive enzymes to digest food; therefore, such supplements are often provided in a combination. Festal NEO is an example of such a supplement. It contains an enhanced formula of enzymes with 10,000 FIP of lipase, 7,500 FIP of alpha-amylase, and 375 FIP of protease.
Such preparations show you clearer information about the efficiency of molecule breakdown, unlike proprietary enzyme blends, where only the total weight of enzymes (in mg) is indicated.
Why Enzyme Strength Is Not the Only Factor
Several more factors affect the efficiency of digestive enzymes. Besides the number of units, the form of intake (tablets, pills, or soluble powders), the production date, and medical prescriptions matter. Digestive enzymes are live protein structures, and they provide dynamic efficiency. The closer their expiration date is, the lower their efficiency can be.
Understanding the Label Is the First Step Toward an Informed Choice
Digestive enzymes are our natural helpers in digestive processes, and when we lack them in our body, special enzyme-based supplements can replenish their number, although they cannot substitute them fully.
The choice of digestive enzymes starts with a clear understanding of why you need them and which levels are necessary for your healthy digestion. Then it is better to select a product from a reliable pharmaceutical brand and check the number of active units (FIP/Ph.Eur.U./USP) for each enzyme. Do not neglect the expiration date of digestive enzymes, and try to get enough of them, freshly produced and thoroughly purified, to get the support you need.
