Your digestive system is replete with enzymes. Saliva begins digesting food with an enzyme called amylase as soon as the food hits your mouth. From there, the food travels to your stomach, where stomach acid and other protein-digesting enzymes join the process. The food then travels on to the small intestine where pancreatic juices, which contain a wide variety of enzymes, are secreted. You also have many enzymes near the lining of your small intestine, mostly to help break down disaccharides.

This carefully calibrated digestive machine can breakdown for any number of reasons: too much food, the wrong kind of food, high stress, environmental factors, illness, or, sometimes its just the way we're born. But perhaps the most common reason is simply age. Like any machine, your digestive system gets squeakier as you get older, making the simple task of nutrition seem a lot harder.

As we love to say, you aren't what you eat, you are what you digest and absorb. Digestive enzymes just help the process along, supporting your body's well-worn digestive system.*