text: The story of enzymes is as fascinating in its details as it is amazing in its applications in promoting human health and wellbeing. Enzymes are proteins that are an integral part of Nature. In fact, life without enzymes would not be possible. Enzymes are needed for each and every chemical reaction that make life possible. No vitamin, mineral or hormone can exert its beneficial effects in the human body without the involvement of enzymes. Despite their central role in all bodily functions, it is only now that the full import of enzymes in human health and disease has begun to be fully appreciated. MUCOS Pharma, the pioneer in systemic enzyme therapy, has been the standard bearer for the last fifty years in having paved the way to elucidate the function of enzymes, and their use as an oral systemic therapy.\n\nFunctions of Enzymes\n\nSince they have unique structure, each enzyme is meant to carry out a specific task. Any given enzyme is evolved to fulfill a definite function, and this specificity allows the body to strictly control the use of enzymes. Once activated, an enzyme will perform its specific function until it is "exhausted," or it is inhibited by another enzyme, in which case its activity is curtailed and/or stopped. As researchers have found out after years of painstaking and laborious work, there is a good reason for this control: It prevents bodily processes from spinning out of control, which may be deleterious to health and wellbeing.\n\nEven casually, the specificity of enzymes suggests that there will be particular types. In fact, Nature has "engineered" families of enzymes for specific tasks. One of the most beneficial and abundant classes of enzymes is referred to as proteolytic enzymes. Enzymes in this category have the ability to "nibble" at other proteins, and break them down into smaller chains of amino acids. Hence the name, proteolytic enzymes, which literally means "chewing up proteins."\n\nOn the surface, it might appear counterintuitive to degrade proteins in the body. Are proteins not required for optimal cellular function, and do they not afford good health and vibrancy well into the golden years? Indeed, they do! In disease, however, the human body produces proteins that could potentially have injurious effects, and further compromise health if left unattended. It was precisely this goal that Drs. Max Wolf and Helen Benitez set themselves roughly one-half a century ago when they started their quest to find a wholesome, effective and safe alternative for human health and wellbeing. Of course, their objective was to understand how c comes about and whether natural alternatives could be designed that will not wreak havoc on the human body as radiation and chemotherapy do. Despite their scientific astuteness, little did Drs. Wolf and Benitez anticipate that their systemic enzymes will afford man immense health benefits, irrespective of whether or not systemic enzymes "cured" c.\n\nDrs. Wolf and Benitez, along with Dr. Karl Ransberger, a young biomedical researcher from Germany, tested a large number of enzymes from animal and plant sources. The work was slow, and it progressed in fits and starts, since the researchers had to optimize the conditions to isolate and purify the enzymes. Not only that, they had to struggle to maintain the activity of the enzymes, because the enzymes are notorious for being finicky and unstable. That is, if the enzymes are not handled properly under precisely defined condition, they become inactive. After all, the researchers were working in the 1950s, a time when the basic enzyme technology was still in its infancy, and individual scientists had to rely more on their wits than technology to tweak answers from Nature.\n\nOnce Drs. Wolf and Benitez had optimized the conditions necessary to maintain the enzyme activity, they started the next part of their work to combine and evaluate various enzyme formulations in assessing th