Many digestive and systemic enzyme supplements on the market today contain enzymes derived from animal sources. Examples of these animal enzymes include pepsin, pancreatin, trypsin and chymotrypsin. However, dietary supplements containing enzymes obtained from non-animal, vegetarian sources have become increasingly more popular. These vegetarian enzymes are derived from either plant or microbial sources. The two plant-derived enzymes most frequently used are bromelain and papain extracted from pineapple and papaya, respectively. The microbial enzyme category contains several highly-purified enzymes concentrated from non-genetically modified microorganisms, primarily Aspergillus oryzae/niger, with a long history of safe and effective use.
Enzymes derived from microbial (fungal or bacterial) sources are often designated as plant or plant-derived enzymes because company marketing departments perceive “plant” sounds better to the consumer than “microbial”. Yet, for many years, the scientific classification of organisms has been divided into distinct kingdoms for animals, plants, fungi and bacteria. This means fungal and bacterial enzymes are definitely not plant enzymes. By definition, vegetarian or vegan is synonymous with non-animal so plant, fungal and bacterial enzymes can all be considered vegetarian. Vegetarian enzymes from microbial sources have several major advantages over animal enzymes and, in some cases, even plant enzymes.
Vegetarian enzymes can be concentrated more than animal enzymes, so more activity can be included in each capsule or tablet. In general, this means vegetarian enzymes require fewer capsules or tablets than animal enzymes to provide equivalent enzymatic activity. This is of particular importance in the use of proteolytic enzymes for systemic purposes where it could take five tablets or capsules containing the highest concentration of pancreatin to provide the same enzymatic activity as one capsule providing high-potency vegetarian proteases.
Vegetarian enzymes from microbial sources provide a broader spectrum of digestive activity working on all of the main food components (protein, carbohydrates, fat and fiber) for more complete digestion. Animal enzymes focus primarily on digesting protein with minimal (pancreatin) or no (pepsin, trypsin and chymotrypsin) starch and fat-digesting capabilities. In addition, animal enzymes provide no sugar-digesting or fiber-digesting activity. Plant enzymes are also limited to protein digestion, offering no assistance with carbohydrate, fat and fiber digestion. Besides the four main digestive enzymes (protease, amylase, lipase and cellulase), there are vegetarian enzymes from microbial sources available to break down gluten (DPP-IV peptidase) in grain-containing foods, sucrose (invertase) in high-sugar foods, lactose (lactase) in dairy foods, raffinose sugars (alpha-galactosidase) in beans and other gas-forming vegetables, and specific complex carbohydrates or fibers (hemicellulase, pectinase, beta-glucanase, xylanase) in fruits, vegetables and whole grains. For more information about gluten-digesting and dairy-digesting enzymes, check out our specialty blends.