The car sitting in your garage is worthless till you place some gas in it and initiate driving. Same with enzymes. Independently enzymes are just pieces to the puzzle. For enzymes to actually perform the thousands of tasks they do, helpers are necessary. Doctors call these helpers co-factors. Most co-factors are vitamins and minerals. The enzyme and the co-factors orchestrate themselves in an ultrasophisticated biochemical symphony called a complex. It's the enzyme complex that brings about enzyme activity - without all the players, the game doesn’t happen.
The important concept here is that vitamins, minerals, and enzymes need each other, such as the three legs of a stool. In the wacky marketplace of today’s food supplements, it’s like we’re assaulted on every side by people screaming Vitamins!, others yelling Minerals!, and others hollering Enzymes! as though each one of these alone were the Magic Bullet that can treatment anything. The true ideas are cooperation, synergy, and co-factoring. Nothing exists in isolation in the body. An enzyme without having co-factors has no enzyme activity.
See also enzyme supplements.
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