Raw Fooders Everywhere,

	Without the bodhster around, what will our hard drives eat for
lunch?  Endless quarrels between NFL's and anti-NFL's?  Doesn't seem
satisfying or fillling enough (though plenty raw) to me.  How about this?

	
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		HEALTH DISCOVERIES NEWSLETTER

		Enzymes and Longevity
 	
In an exclusive interview, food enzyme researcher Dr. Edward Howell tells
why he believes:

"Enzymes may be the key factor in preventing chronic disease and
extending the human lifespan."
 	
Dr. Edward Howell was born in Chicago in 1898. He is the holder of a
limited medical license from the State of Illinois.
	
The holder of a limited practice license is required to pass the same
medical examination as a medical doctor. Only surgery, obstetrics and
materia medica are excluded.

After obtaining his license, Dr. Howell joined the professional staff of
the Lindlahr Sanitorium, where he remained for six years. In 1930, he
established a private facility for the treatment of chronic ailments by
nutritional and physical methods.

Until he retired in 1970, Dr. Howell was busy in private practice three
days each week. The balance of his time he devoted to various kinds of
research.

Dr. Howell is the first researcher to recognize the importance of the
enzymes in food to human nutrition. In 1946, he wrote the book, "The
Status of Food Enzymes in Digestion and Metabolism."  Dr. Howell's
forthcoming book is entitled, "Enzyme Diet."
	
This book contains the reference and source materials for the enzyme
theories which Dr. Howell has collectively called, "The Food Enzyme
Concept." The manuscript for "Enzyme Diet" reviews the scientific
literature through 1973. 1t is approximately 160,000 words long and
contains 47 tables and 695 references to the world's scientific
literature.

In this interview, Dr. Howell tells: What enzymes are, what they do in
our bodies, why he believes a state of enzyme deficiency stress exists in
most people, and finally, what he believes you can do about it.

"Neither vitamins, minerals or hormones can do any work -- without
enzymes."

HDN: What are enzymes?

HOWELL:  Enzymes are substances which make life possible.  They are
needed for every chemical reaction in that occurs in our body.  Without
enzymes, no activity at all would take place.  Neither vitamins,
minerals, or hormones can do any work -- without enzymes.

Think of it this way:  Enzymes are the "labor force" that builds your
body just like  construction workers are the labor force that builds your house. You may
have all the  necessary building materials and lumber, but to build a house you need
workers, which represent the vital life element.

Similarly, you may have all the nutrients -- vitamins, proteins,
minerals, etc., for your  body, but you still need the enzymes -- the life element
-- to keep the body alive and well.

HDN: Are enzymes then just like chemical catalysts which speed up various
reactions?

HOWELL: No. Enzymes are much more than catalysts.

Catalysts are only inert substances. They possess none of the life energy
we find in  enzymes. For instance, enzymes give off a kind of radiation when they
work. This is not true of  catalysts.

In addition, although enzymes contain proteins -- and some contain
vitamins -- the activity factor in enzymes has never been synthesized.
	
Moreover, there is no combination of proteins or any combination of amino
acids or any other substance which will give enzyme activity. There are
proteins present in enzymes. However, they serve only as carriers of the
enzyme activity factors.

Therefore, we can say that enzymes consist of protein carriers charged
with energy factors just as a battery consists of metallic plates charged
with electrical energy.

HDN: Where do the enzymes in our bodies come from?

HOWELL: It seems that we inherit a certain enzyme potential at birth.

This limited supply of activity factors or life force must last us a
lifetime. It's just as if you inhented a certain amount of money. If the
movement is all one way -- all spending and no income -- you will run out
of money.

Likewise, the faster you use up your supply of enzyme activity, the
quicker you will run out. Experiments at various universities have shown
that, regardless of the species, the faster the metabolic rate, the
shorter the lifespan.

Other things being equal, you live as long as your body has enzyme
activity factors to make enzymes from. When it gets to the point that you
can't make certain enzymes, then your life ends.

HDN: Do people do anything which causes them to waste their limited
enzyme supply?

HOWELL: Yes. Just about every single person eats a diet of mainly cooked
foods. Keep in mind that whenever a food is boiled at 212 degrees, the
enzymes in it are 100% destroyed.

If enzymes were in the food we eat, they would do some or even a
considerable part of the work of digestion by themselves. However, when
you eat cooked, enzyme-free food, this forces the body itself to make the
enzymes needed for digestion. This depletes the body's limited enzyme
capacity.

HDN: How serious is this strain on our enzyme "bank" caused by
diets of mostly cooked food?

HOWELL: I believe it's one of the paramount causes of premature aging and
early death. I also believe it's the underlying cause of almost all
degenerative disease.

To begin with, if the body is overburdened to supply many enzymes to the
saliva, gastric juice, pancreatic juice and intestinal juice, then it
must curtail the production of enzymes for other purposes.

If this occurs, then how can the body also make enough enzymes to run the
brain, heart, kidneys, lungs, muscles and other organs and tissues?

This "stealing" of enzymes from other parts of the body to service the
digestive tract sets up a competition for enzymes among the various organ
systems and tissues of the body.

The resulting metabolic dislocations may be the direct cause of cancer,
coronary heart disease, diabetes, and many other chronic incurable diseases.
	
This state of enzyme deficiency stress exists in the majority of persons
on the civilized, enzyme-free diet.

HDN: Did human disease begin when man started cooking his food?

HOWELL: This is what the evidence indicates.

For example, the Neanderthal Man of 50,000 years ago used fire
extensively in his cooking. He lived in caves and ate mostly roasted meat from the
continuous fires which warmed the caves. These statements are documented by
scientific evidence in my published and unpublished works.

>From fossil evidences we know that the Neanderthal Man suffered from
fully-developed cnppling arthritis.

It's possible that the Neanderthal Man also had diabetes or cancer or
kidney disease and so forth. However, we'll never know since all soft tissues
have disappeared without a trace.

Incidentally, another inhabitant of the caves was the cave bear. This
creature protected the Neanderthal Man from the cave tiger, who also wanted the
protection of the cave to avoid the frigid weather. The cave bear,
according to paleontologists, was a partially domesticated animal and
most likely lived on the same roasted meat that the cave man ate.

Like the cave man, the cave bear also suffered from chronic, deforming
arthritis.

HDN: Isn't it possible that cold weather, not cooked food, was
responsible for the arthritis of the Neanderthal Man?

HOWELL: No, I don't think weather had much to do with it.

For example, consider the primitive Eskimo. He lived in an environment
just as frigid as that of the Neanderthal Man. And yet, the Eskimo never
suffered rom arthntis and other chronic diseases.

However, the Eskimo ate large amounts of raw food. The meat he ate was
only  slightly heated and was raw in the center. Therefore, the Eskimo received
a large quantity of food enzymes with every meal.

In fact, the word Eskimo itself comes from an Indian expression which
means, "He who eats it raw."

Incidentally, there is no tradition of medicine men among the Eskimo
people. But among groups like the North American Indian, who ate cooked
food extensively, the medicine man had a prominent position in the tribe.

HDN: What evidence is there that human beings suffer from food enzyme
deficiency?

HOWELL: There's so much evidence that I can only briefly summanze a small

fraction of it. Over the last 40 years, I have collected thousands of
scientific documents to document my theories.

To begin with, human beings have the lowest levels of starch digesting
enzymes in their blood of any creature. We also have the highest level of
these enzymes in the urine, meaning that they are being used up faster.

There's other evidence showing that these low enzyme levels are not due
to a pecularity of our species. Instead, they are due to the large amounts of
cooked starch we eat.

Also, we know that decreased enzyme levels are found in a number of
chronic ailments, such as allergies, skin disease, and even serious diseases like
diabetes and cancer.

In addition, incriminating evidence indicates that cooked, enzyme-free
diets contribute to a pathological over-enlargement of the pituitary
gland, which regulates the other glands.  Furthermore, there is research
showing that almost 100% of the people over 50 dying from accidental
causes were found to have defective pituitary glands.

Next, I believe that food enzyme deficiency is the cause of the
exaggerated maturation of  today's children and teenagers. It is also an
important cause of overweight in many children and adults.

Many animal experiments have shown that enzyme-deficient diets produce a
much more rapid maturation than usual. Animals on cooked diets are also
much heavier than their counterparts on raw diets .

Another piece of related evidence is that farmers use cooked potatoes to
fatten pigs for market. The've found that pigs on cooked potatoes fatten
faster and more economically than pigs on raw potatoes.

This evidence shows the great difference between cooked calories and raw
calories. Indeed, from my work in a sanitarium many years ago, I've found that it
was impossible to get people fat on raw foods, regardless of the calorie
intake.

Incidentally, another effect associated with food enzyme deficiency is
that the size of the brain decreases. In addition, the thyroid
overenlarges, even in the presence of adequate iodine. This has been
shown in a number of species. Of course, you can't prove it on human
beings. The evidence, however, is very suggestive.

HDN: What else is there?

HOWELL: Next, consider that the human pancreas is burdened with enzyme
production far in excess of any creature living on a raw food diet. In
fact, in proportion to body weight, the human pancreas is more than twice as heavy
as that of a cow.

Human beings eat mainly cooked food, while cows eat raw  grass.

Then, there is evidence that rats on a cooked diet have a pancreas about
twice as heavy as rats on a raw diet.

Moreover, evidence shows that the human pancreas is one of the heaviest
in the animal kingdom, when you adjust for total body weight.

This overenlargement of the human pancreas is just as dangerous --
probably even more so -- than an overlargement of the heart, the thyroid and so on.
 The overproduction of enzymes in humans is a pathological adaption to a diet
of enzyme-free foods.

The pancreas is not the only part of the body that oversecretes enzymes
when the diet is cooked. In addition, there are the human salivary glands, which
produce enzymes to a degree never found in wild animals on their natural foods.

In fact, some animals on a raw diet do not have any enzymes at all in
their saliva. The cow and sheep produce torrents of saliva with 	no enzymes in
it.

Dogs, for instance, also secrete no enzymes in their saliva when they're
eating a raw diet. However, if you start giving them cooked starchy food, their
salivary glands will start producing starch-digesting enzymes within 10 days.

In addition, there's more evidence that the enzymes in saliva represent a

pathological and not a normal situation. To begin with, salivary enzymes
cannot digest raw starch. This is something I demonstrated in the laboratory.

The enzymes in saliva will only attack a piece of starch once it's
cooked. Therefore, we see that the body will channel some of its limited
enzyme producing capacity into saliva only if it has to.

Incidentally, there is some provocative animal research which I have done
in my own laboratory some years ago. If you'd like, I can explain it now for your
readers.

HDN: Yes, please do.

HOWELL: I fed one group of rats a cooked diet and one group a raw diet
and let them live out their lifespan to see which group would live longer.

The first group got a combination of raw meat and various raw vegetables
and grains. The second group got the same foods boiled and therefore enzyme-free.
I kept these rats until they died, which took about three years.

As the experiment came to a close, the results surprised me. It turned
out that there was no great difference between the lifespans of the two
groups. Later on, I discovered the reason.
	
It turned out that the rats on the cooked diet were still getting
enzymes, but from an unexpected source. They had been eating their own feces,
which contained the enzymes excreted from their own bodies.

All feces, including those of human beings, contain the enzymes that the
body has used. My rats had been recycling their own enzymes to use them over
again. And that's why they lived as long as the rats on the raw diet.

Incidentally, the practice of eating feces is almost universal among
today's laboratory animals. Although these animals receive scientific diets
ontaining all known vitamins and minerals, the animals instinctively know
they need enzymes. Because of this, they eat their own feces.

In fact, the animals on these scientific diets develop most of the
chronic human degenerative diseases if they are allowed to live out their lifespans.
This shows that vitamins and minerals alone are not sufficient for health.

HDN: How do you know that people would benefit from additional enzyme
intake?

HOWELL: To me, the most impressive evidence that people need enzymes is
what occurs as a result of therapeutic fasting. As you know, I spent some
years in a sanitarium working with patients on various fasting programs.

When a person fasts, there is an immediate halt to the production of
digestive enzymes. The enzymes in saliva, gastric juice and pancreatic
juice dwindle and become scarce. During fasting, the body's enzymes are
free to work on repairing and removing diseased tissues.

Civilized people eat such large quantities of cooked foods that their
enzyme systems are kept busy digesting food. As a result, the body lacks
the enzymes needed to maintain the tissues in good health.

Most people who fast go through what is called a healing crisis. The
patients may feel nausea, vomiting and dizziness. What's happening is
that the enzymes are working to change the unhealthy structure of the
body. The enzymes attack pathological tissues and break down undigested
and unprocessed substances; and these then get thrown off through the
bowels, through vomiting, or via the skin.

HDN: When people get enzymes from food, aren't they destroyed by stomach
acid and therefore of little or no value?

HOWELL: This is not true. Although most nutntionists claim that enzymes
in food are destroyed in the stomach, they overlook two important facts.

First of all, when you eat food, acid secretion is minimal for at least
thirty minutes. As the food goes down the esophagus, it drops  into the top
portion of the stomach. This is called the cardiac section, since it's closer to the
heart.

The rest of the stomach remains flat and closed while the cardiac section
opens up to accommodate the food. During the iime the food sits in the upper
section, little acid or enzymes are secreted by the body. The enzymes in the food
itself go about digesting the food. The more of this self-digestion that occurs,
the less work the body has to do later.
	
When this 30 to 45 minute period is over, the bottom section of the
stomach opens up and the body starts secreting acid and enzymes. Even at this
point, the food enzymes are not inactivated until the acid level becomes prohibitive.
You see, food enzymes can tolerate chemical environments many times more acid
than neutral.

HDN: Do animals also have a special section of the stomach where food
digests
itself?

HOWELL: Absolutely. In fact, some creatures have what I call a food
enzyme
stomach.

There are the cheek pouches of monkeys and rodents, the crop of many
species of  birds, and the first stomachs of whales, dolphins and porpoises.

When birds, for instance, swallow seeds or grains, these grains lie in
the crop for 8 to 12 hours. As they sit, they absorb moisture, swell up
and begin to germinate. During germination, enzymes are formed which
do the work of digesting the seeds and grains.

Whales, dolphins and porpoises have a first stomach which secretes no
enzymes.  Whales, for examples swallow large quantities of food without
chewing it. The  food simply decomposes and digests itself. In the flesh of
the fish and other marine life the whale eats is an enzyme, called cathepsin,
which breaks down the fish once it has died. In fact, this enzyme is present
in almost all creatures.

After the whale's catch has liquefied itself, it passes through a small
hole into the whale's second stomach.

It mystifies scientists how the whale's catch can get through that small
hole into the second stomach. They have no idea that self-digestion was
at work.

HDN: Most -- if not all of us, eat lots of cooked foods every day. Can we
make up for this enzyme loss by eating raw foods in addition?

HOWELL: No. Cooked foods cause such a large drain on our enzyme supply
that you can't make it up by eating raw foods.

In addition, vegetables and fruits are not concentrated sources of
enzymes. When produce ripens, enzymes are present to do the ripening. However,
once the ripening is finished, some of the enzymes leave and go back into the stem
and seeds.

For example, when companies want to get enzymes from papaya, a tropical
fruit, they use the juice of unripe papaya. The ripe papaya itself has no
great concentration of enzymes.

HDN: Are there any foods particularly high in enzymes?

HOWELL: Bananas, avocadoes and mangoes are good sources. In general,
foods having a higher calorie content are richer in enzymes.

HDN: Do you recommend all raw foods as sources of enzymes?

HOWELL: No. There are some foods, seeds and nuts, that contain what are
called enzyme inhibitors.

These enzyme inhibitors are present for the protection of the seed.
Nature doesn't want the seed to germinate prematurely and lose its life.
It wants to make sure that the seed is present in soil with sufficient
moisture to grow and continue the species.

Therefore, when you eat raw seeds or raw nuts, you are swallowing enzyme
inhibitors which will neutralize some of the enzymes your body produces.
In fact, eating foods with enzyme inhibitors causes a swelling of the pancreas.

All nuts and seeds contain these inhibitors. Raw peanuts, for example,
contain an especially large amount. Raw wheat germ is also one of the worst
offenders. In addition, all peas, beans and lentils contain some.

Potatoes, which are seeds, have enzyme inhibitors.

In eggs, which are also seeds, the inhibitor is contained mainly in the
eggwhite.

As a general rule, enzyme inhibitors are confined to the seed portions of
food.  For instance, the eyes of potatoes. The inhibitors are not present in the
fleshy portions of fruits or in the leaves and stems of vegetables.

There are two ways to destroy enzyme inhibitors. The first is cooking;
however, this also destroys the enzymes. The second way, which is
preferable, is sprouting. This destroys the enzyme inhibitors and also
increases the enzyme content from a factor of 3 to 6.
	
Some foods, like soybeans, must be especially well heated to destroy the
inhibitors. For example, many of the soy flours and powders on the market were not
heated enough to destroy the inhibitors.

There is one other way to neutralize enzyme inhibitors, but we'll get to
it in just a minute.

HDN: You said that it's not possible to overcome the enzyme drain of
cooked foods just by eating other raw foods. What then can people do?

HOWELL: The only solution is to take capsules of concentrated plant
enzymes.

In the absence of contraindications, you should take from l to 3 capsules
per meal. Of course, if you are eating all raw foods, then no enzymes will be
necessary at that meal.

The capsules should be opened and sprinkled on the food or chewed with
the meal. This way, the enzymes can go to work immediately. Incidentally, taking
extra enzymes is the third way to neutralize the enzyme inhibitors in
unsprouted seeds and nuts.

Concentrates of plant enzymes or fungus enzymes are better for
predigestion of  food than tablets of pancreatic enzymes. This is because
plant enzymes can work in the acidity of the stomach, whereas pancreatic
enzymes only work best in the alkalinity of the small intestine.

If the enzyme tablet has an enteric coating, then it's not suitable,
since it will only release after it has passed the stomach. By this time, it's too
late for food predigestion. The body itself has already used its own enzymes
to digest the food.

HDN: Would people benefit from taking enzymes, even if they have no
problem with digestion or if they eat mainly raw foods?

HOWELL: They probably would benefit. Our bodies use up enzymes in so many
ways that it pays to maintain your enzyme bank, regardless of what you
eat.

For example, enzymes are used up faster during certain illnesses, during
extremely hot or cold weather, and during strenuous exercise.

Also, keep in mind that any enzymes that are taken are not wasted since
they add to the enzyme pool of your body.

Furthermore, as we pass our prime, the amount of enzymes in our bodies
and excreted in our sweat and urine continues to decline until we die. In
fact, low enzyme levels are associated with old age and chronic disease.

So far, there's not much hard evidence on whether taking additional
enzymes will extend the lifespan. However, we do know that laboratory
rats that eat raw foods will live about 3 years. Rats that eat enzymeless
chow diets will live only 2 years. Thus, we see that diets deficient in
enzymes cause a 30% reduction in lifespan.

If this held true for human beings, it may mean that people could extend
their lifespans by 20 or more years -- just by maintaining proper enzyme
levels.
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Editor's Note:  While not much in the way of evidence, Dr. Howell and his
wife Evangeline can be offered as examples of the benefits of taking enzymes.
She looks about twenty years younger than her age. And Dr. Howell, though
well over 70, feels as alert and vital as 30 years ago. He still goes
jogging frequently.
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 (C) 1991 University of Natural Healing, Inc. All rights reserved.


Bob Avery ([log in to unmask])