Happy Sunday! While you are snacking on your Sunday brunch bacon or sausage, let me educate you a bit on protein digestion. Proteins are the most difficult macronutrient to digest. Protein digestion happens in two phases: One, in your stomach, where proteases (broad term for protein-digesting enzymes) are released by cells that line your stomach. These proteases are activated by a low pH, in other words, they cant do their job well when you are on acid-clocking medications. Proteases help cleave/chop up big protein molecules. When you eat, as your stomach begins to fill and expand, a hormone called Gastrin is released, which in turn triggers the production of proteases and HCl (stomach acid. Two, in your small intestine...this phase is broken into 3 further subphases called the luminal, brush border and intracellular phases. In the luminal phase - which refers to when food is in the lumen, or tube of your intestine - proteases and peptidases released from the pancreas go to work. At the brush border phase - which is the true lining of the small intestine - an enzyme called enteropeptidase generates a compound called trypsin, which fires up a bunch of other enzymes to further chop up proteins down into tinier and tinier compounds. Lastly, at the intracellular phase, these teensy-weensy chopped up proteins (by this phase, if all goes well, they are only 1 to 3 amino acids long) are taken up by the cell by a variety of transport mechanisms where they are at last broken up into free amino acids. So, you can see that compromise to either the acidity of the stomach or the lining of the stomach or small intestine can be problematic for protein digestion. Incomplete protein digestion not only can give you stinky gas, bloating, distension and gurgling, it also is established in the literature for creating IgE food allergies. In people who have issues with gluten - known or unknown - compromises in the brush border can mean these large, unbroken protein molecules can enter general circulation and trigger an autoimmune response.
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 10:30:01 +0000
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