What nutrients are digestive enzymes made of?I've heard that digestive enzymes are made out of amino acids but aren't they also made out of other nutrients such as vitamins or minerals? -iron maybe? Please clarify.
Posted by Holly
Enzymes are biological catalysts. Their purpose is to change the rate of a chemical reaction. Often, without the enzyme present, the reaction would be so slow as to not occur at all under normal conditions.
Like all proteins, enzymes are made from strings of amino acids folded up into an intricate three-dimensional structure. Amino acids may be composed of several elements, including nitrogen, carbon, oxygen and hydrogen.
Your body can synthesise some amino acids from scratch, but the 'essential amino acids' can only be recovered from food you eat. The proteins you consume are broken down into constituent amino acids in the digestive system by enzymes and recombined into new proteins for use in the body's tissues.
Some proteins, including some enzymes, do need elements such as iron to function. Haemoglobin, for example, is used in blood to transport oxygen. Each molecule has several iron atoms in its structure.
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