What’s the Key to Metabolizing Fat? Check Out This Enzyme
Your food contains various nutrients that play key roles in boosting health and promoting ideal body function. However, have you ever wondered how these end up in organs where they are most needed for your well-being?
Look no further than the body’s digestion process for answers to this question, especially digestive enzymes! These often-overlooked nutrients are mainly tasked to break down components in the food you eat so they are easier to digest and can be delivered to different parts of the body.1
Your body needs certain enzymes to digest food. Amylase breaks down carbohydrates and sugars, protease works on proteins, and lipase helps digest fats, respectively.1 Curious about digestive enzymes? This guide highlights lipase, a tiny but powerful enzyme that helps break down one of the trickiest nutrients — fat.
What Does Lipase Do?
Lipase is a natural substance found in the body that helps break down the fat from the food you eat.2 Its main job is to turn that fat into smaller parts like healthy fats and simple sugars, which your body can then use for energy.3
Lipase is mostly made by the pancreas, along with other helpful enzymes for digestion.4,5 However, it can also come from animals, plants, and even tiny microbes.6 You can also find lipase in over-the-counter digestive enzyme tablets or supplements, which doctors may recommend if your body isn’t making enough of it (more on this later).4
Although lipase is known as a digestive enzyme, it doesn’t wait for food to reach the stomach — fat digestion actually starts as soon as you take your first bite. Here’s a simple breakdown of how your body processes fat and the role lipase plays along the way:7
- In the Mouth
As you chew, your saliva coats the food to make it easier to swallow.8 However, saliva also contains special substances that start breaking fat into smaller bits.7 - In the Stomach
Once the food reaches your stomach, another enzyme called gastric lipase continues the job, breaking down the fat even more into simpler forms. - In the Small Intestine
The partly digested fat moves into the small intestine. Here, bile from the liver joins in, helping break the fat into even smaller pieces. - The Main Work Begins
At this point, lipase really gets into the thick of things, breaking down fats into their most usable forms so your body can absorb them. At the same time, bile helps move these fat particles to the surface of the intestine, where they can be taken up by the body. - The Final Step
The broken-down fat parts are put back together in a new way, along with cholesterol and protein, forming lipoproteins. These are like little transport packages that carry fat through your bloodstream so your body can use it for energy or store it for later.7
And when you thought you’ve seen it all, did you know that lipase doesn’t just help break down fat, but deliver it to various parts of the body too? Lastly, lipase is also able to help with optimal tissue function, particularly in organs like the liver and the small intestine, and in endothelial cells.5
Can Someone Suffer From a Lipase Deficiency?
Sadly, it can happen. There are multiple types of digestive enzyme deficiencies,4 one of which is exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI). This happens when the pancreas doesn’t produce enough digestive enzymes for the body9 (not just lipase), leading to the small intestine’s inability to properly digest food.10 Some signs of EPI include stomach pain, gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, fatty stools, or unexplained weight loss.9
Health experts advise that cases of EPI must be addressed as soon as possible. Unaddressed deficiencies may negatively impact the body’s ability to get fats, proteins, and carbohydrates from food, raising the risk for malabsorption or inability to absorb nutrients. In the long run, unaddressed malabsorption can snowball into malnutrition and may make people prone to unintended weight loss and severe nutrient deficiencies.9
Choose This Digestive Enzyme Supplement That Helps With Fat Breakdown and More
The thing is, you don’t need to wait for the first signs of a digestive enzyme deficiency to happen to improve the way you digest your food. This is where a digestive enzyme supplement like Enzymax Forte® can give you a much-needed assist!
This supplement not only contains lipase, but also other digestive enzymes like amylase, protease, glucoamylase, and alpha-galactosidase. All of these work in tandem to help relieve symptoms of functional indigestion that manifest as dyspepsia and/or flatulence due to an enzyme deficiency or imbalance.11
Most importantly, Enzymax Forte® assists in providing targeted digestive enzyme delivery to the stomach and the intestines, where these nutrients are needed to start working on better digestion and health.
Enzymax Forte® is available online and in leading drugstores nationwide at a suggested retail price (SRP) of Php48.00 per capsule and Php960.00 per box of 20 capsules.
MAHALAGANG PAALALA: ANG ENZYMAX FORTE® AY HINDI GAMOT AT HINDI DAPAT GAMITING PANGGAMOT SA ANUMANG URI NG SAKIT.
- Key, A. P. (2024, February 23). What are digestive enzymes? WebMD. Retrieved March 26, 2025, from https://www.webmd.com/diet/what-are-digestive-enzymes
- The digestive process: What is the role of your pancreas in digestion? (2024, May 28). Johns Hopkins Medicine. Retrieved March 26, 2025, from https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/the-digestive-process-what-is-the-role-of-your-pancreas-in-digestion
- Bolen, B., PhD. (2024, July 24). Digestive enzymes: Types and function. Verywell Health. Retrieved March 26, 2025, from https://www.verywellhealth.com/what-are-digestive-enzymes-1945036
- Digestive enzymes and digestive enzyme supplements. (2022, February 10). Johns Hopkins Medicine. Retrieved March 26, 2025, from https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/digestive-enzymes-and-digestive-enzyme-supplements
- Pirahanchi, Y., & Sharma, S. (2023, June 26). Biochemistry, lipase. StatPearls - NCBI Bookshelf. Retrieved March 27, 2025, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK537346/
- Chandra, P., Enespa, Singh, R., et al. (2020). Microbial lipases and their industrial applications: A comprehensive review. Microbial Cell Factories, 19, 169. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12934-020-01428-8
- Villines, Z. (2021, January 28). How does the body digest fat? Medical News Today. Retrieved March 27, 2025, from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/fat-digestion
- Cleveland Clinic Medical Professional. (2025, March 19). Salivary glands. Cleveland Clinic. Retrieved March 27, 2025, from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/23462-salivary-glands
- Exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI). (2024, May 1). Cleveland Clinic. Retrieved March 27, 2025, from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21577-exocrine-pancreatic-insufficiency-epi
- Definition & facts for exocrine pancreatic insufficiency. (2025, February 21). National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Retrieved March 27, 2025, from https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/digestive-diseases/exocrine-pancreatic-insufficiency/definition-facts
- Enzymax Forte™ Company Core Data Sheet. Date of Revision: 07 Jan 2023.
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