Jason Tan Boon Teck said:
I thought that our digestive system would break down the food we eat into basic components such as amino acids, lipids, glucose, etc.
Hello Jason. You are quite correct, although lipids are not basic components. Lipids are broken down into their basic components such as glycerides, glycerol and free fatty acids. <P>
Jason Tan Boon Teck said:
Could these now popular health supplements retain its structures and consequently its efficacy, when we digest them? Or are these just marketing gimmicks?
I cannot say as I am not sure what health supplements you are referring to. You will have to name some specific examples.
From the title of your thread, are you saying that enzymes and chlorophyll are taken as supplements? Any enzymes that you ingest will not be functional as the acidic environment of the stomach, along with pepsin, will very effectively degrade them. They will definately not retain their structures. Your digestive tract will treat them no differently to all the other protein you ingest, so that is definitely a marketing gimmick.
As for chlorophyll, I am not sure what happens to a molecule like chlorophyll during digestion. It’s not a polysaccharide, protein, lipid or nucleic acid – it’s a porphyrin ring based molecule (like heme). I don’t know if it is broken down by a specific mechanism and absorbed in the SI (it has a fatty acid-like tail) or whether it retains its structure and passes through and is excreted. I presume it degrades in the stomach. Can anyone shed some light on this (pun intended)?
At any rate, you can also put that down as a marketing gimmick because chlorophyll serves no purpose with regard to human health. <P>
