How well do you breakdown the fat that you eat?
Fat or lipids are heavily consumed in the average diet. Some of these fats are healthy and some are not quite as beneficial to our health. Regardless of the dietary nutritional value of the types of fat we consume, it is essential to properly break them down for our body to either utilize or remove. Dietary fats can be difficult to properly break down: first, because they are large molecules, and secondly, because they are not water soluble.
Factors such as age, stress or lifestyle choices can affect the production of enzymes to support proper digestion, such as lipase (fat-digesting enzyme), and vital fluids such as bile.
Fat or lipids are heavily consumed in the average diet. Some of these fats are healthy and some are not quite as beneficial to our health. Regardless of the dietary nutritional value of the types of fat we consume, it is essential to properly break them down for our body to either utilize or remove. Dietary fats can be difficult to properly break down: first, because they are large molecules, and secondly, because they are not water soluble.
Factors such as age, stress or lifestyle choices can affect the production of enzymes to support proper digestion, such as lipase (fat-digesting enzyme), and vital fluids such as bile.
Lipases are a class of enzymes
responsible for the breakdown of fats within the digestive system.
Produced by the liver and stored in the gallbladder, bile salts function
in breaking down larger molecule of fats (triglycerides), allowing more
surface for lipid to efficiently break down fats. Once properly broken
down, they move along the lining of the small intestine for further
processing, and are then absorbed.
When the digestive system does not
produce or secrete adequate amounts of lipase to accommodate dietary fat
intake, symptoms like bloating, cramping, flatulence, undesired weight
gain, and sometimes steatorrhea (fat in the stool) may occur. Lipases
are produced primarily by the pancreas as pancreatic enzymes. If the
pancreas isn’t functioning properly, it is likely to cause fat
maldigestion and malabsorption, which results poor nutritional
absorption.