Zymessence Compared
We often get questions about how our Zymessence® compares against other systemic enzyme products. And very often in advertising, other products will compare themselves to Zymessence®. Since companies most often compare their products to what they believe is the leading product of its kind on the market or the product they think is their closest competition, the fact that they choose to compare themselves to us tells you a lot in and of itself!
Comparison Question #1: Zymessence® Compared: As to how the Zymessence® compares to the other systemic enzyme products?
Point #1) It's impossible to do label comparisons and know which systemic enzyme product will actually work when ingested. And, here's why: Due to differences in:
1) Who a company gets its enzyme raw materials from (this is a super important point to ensure active enzymes are put into a product).
2) How those raw materials were fermented and/or extracted by the maker.
3) How they and the receiving company store its enzymes as raw materials.
4) If they stabilize the enzymes or not, stabilization means putting the enzymes to "sleep" in suspended animation; (this is SUPER DUPER IMPORTANT to keep enzymes "alive" and "active". Unfortunately, most enzyme making firms and enzyme packaging firms have ZERO idea on how to stabilize an enzyme to keep it from becoming 'awake' and 'active' before ingestion. If the enzymes become active while in the pill or capsule, the enzymes will then eat each other and then themselves degrading the overall enzymatic activity of the product before you get to take it!!!!)
5) The speed at which the different enzymes were blended together and then tableted or encapsulated, (faster = heat = enzyme death).
6) The humidity and temperature in the plant during the above mentioned operations and during storage.
7) Finally, if any enteric coatings or enteric matrixing is done, which enteric protective material is used and how much is used.
All these factors have a bearing on how well an enzyme product works when taken. AND, those factors are more important than what the label states was thrown into the mixer at the time of blending.
In the end, as Dr. Wong is notorious for saying:
"The proof of the pudding is in the eating!" This is why of the nearly 100+ systemic enzyme products in the US market today, only a handful actually have a physiological action in the body when taken.
Comparision Question #2: Nattokinase: On products that tout they have nattokinase and on how great nattokinase is; why does Zymessence® not have nattokinase?
Point #2) Dr. Wong HATES nattokinase. Of all the proteolytic enzymes it is the only one that does not have a feedback mechanism to let it know when to stop lysing, (i.e. eating) blood proteins.
In nature nattokinase is always found with Vitamin K1 and that prevents the blood from becoming overly thin when eating the natto curd and taking in the nattokinase enzyme. When the nattokinase is extracted from that curd, the Vitamin K is left behind. So, of all the proteolytic enzymes it is the one most likely to create the danger of overly thin blood and cause hemorrhagic bleeding issues. We've spoken to two docs, one of whom is a very famous alternative doc, who got both themselves and their patients in bleeding trouble by using what were modest dosing levels of nattokinase. So, again, this is why there is NO nattokinase in any of our products!
Comparison Question #3: Milligrams vs Activity Units: Why don't you tell us how many milligrams of each enzyme are in your product?
Point #3) Any systemic enzyme product whose label tells you the milligram amount of any enzyme in a product is not telling you anything. Enzymes are measure by activity not milligrams. All enzymes as raw materials come in strengths, stronger and weaker versions of the same enzyme (i.e. industrial grade, the various food grades vs pharmaceutical grade). For example, the extract potency for Pancreatin starts with a 10x - 12x now being the strongest available and 4x being relatively weak. You can have one milligram of a particular enzyme with 100,000 units of activity while 100mg of the same enzyme from a different enzyme maker might have only 50 units of activity. So, milligram measurements tell you nothing about the strength of an enzyme. Zymessence® uses only the top strength enzymes in its blend!
While the enzymes that go into a blending machine might have a particular amount of activity when fresh, if the blending and tableting process is not done correctly for enzymes the enzymatic activity of the finished product will be less due to the process having inactivated (killed) the enzymes.
Product makers who don't actually take and use their own products have ZERO idea as to whether any particular product actually works or not. Don't rely on sales staff to tell you how well a product works. It's their job to tell you the stuff is great regardless of how dead and useless it might be. Remember that most of the sales personnel in the nutritional industry are not health professionals nor are they the health minded folks that those in the health food stores might be; for them it's a job, selling vitamins or used cars or furniture it's all the same.
Everything we build at WAM Essentials, Inc. we personally use. We're the first ones to know whether a product actually works or not. We have no sales staff here, just customer service representatives to take customer orders. No one works on commission, no one answering the phone gives off the wall false claim answers on a products abilities or health advice. We don't sell anything that we don't think works and we get rid of products that give us less-than-desired results or we revise the products if we feel we can make the formula work better (new data always helps us here).
Frequently Asked Questions
Question: I’ve heard that supplements can be made without flow agents and excipients. So why does Zymessence® have those?
Answer: As an actual manufacturer of supplements and not just a company that has products made by others via contract manufacturing, I can state categorically that IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ENCAPSULATE OR TABLET HERBS, VITAMINS OR ENZYMES WITHOUT FLOW AGENTS. THOSE MATERIALS (ESPECIALLY ENZYMES and some herbs) ARE TOO STICKY AND THE MACHINERY DOES NOT EXIST THAT CAN BLEND, TABLET OR ENCAPSULATE THOSE STICKY SUBSTANCES WITHOUT MAKING THEM UN-STICKY!!!
THE PRODUCTS USED AS FLOW AGENTS ARE THE SAME PRODUCTS USED IN BAKING TO KEEP BATTER FROM STICKING TO PANS AND PAPER CAKE CUPS! THE AGENTS ARE USED IN SUPPLEMENTS ARE EDIBLE, PHARMACEUTICAL GRADE, (meaning they are of the highest grade of purity), AND HAVE ZERO PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECT!
ANYONE TELLING YOU THEIR PRODUCTS ARE COMPLETELY FREE OF FLOW AGENTS (aka excipients etc.), EITHER DOES NOT KNOW WHAT THEIR CONTRACT MANUFACTURER REALLY PUT INTO THEIR PRODUCT OR THEY ARE TELLING YOU A BOLD FACE LIE!!!
Sad fact is that if you have any encapsulated or tableted product claiming to be free of excipients, flow agents etc. independently tested, all will be found to contain them. Contract manufacturers lie to their clients as to their ability to build products without flow agents. One very well known doctor who first led the campaign for flow agent free supplements became very quiet about that issue just before her death when she found out that the contract manufacturer she had used for years had been woefully less than truthful in telling her what they made for her was flow agent free.
Question: Instead of maltodextrin other companies use rice bran as their starch. I’ve been told rice starch is more natural. Why don’t you use that?
Answer: We looked into switching to rice bran when be began our own manufacturing. So, we contacted one of the primary suppliers of rice bran. According to the main makers of rice starch, if they know that a company intends to use the starch in nutritional supplements they won’t sell the starch to them. Why? Rice starch breeds bacteria. If a “KILL STEP”, (i.e. cooking or baking the starch), is not done then bacteria can easily develop and grow on the starch and then in the supplement product.
This discovery came from a recall of Nestle Toll House Cookie Dough in 2009 where rice bran was used to powder the outside of the roll of dough to prevent it sticking to the wrapping. As usually happens during the process of cookie making, children and adults will eat some of the uncooked dough. By June 27, 2009 the CDC had found that the dough, or more specifically the rice starch on the dough had caused 71 illnesses in 30 states with 28 individuals needing hospitalization for E coli infections.
Nutritional product manufacturers DO hot have ovens in their facilities. Nor can most of them use up the manpower or the time to bake several hundred pounds of rice starch for hours and hours to do the kill step needed to stop rice starch from breeding E coli. It is much more efficient and infinitely safer to use a product that does not breed bacteria and whose use in pharmacology for 100 + years have shown it to be safe when ingested.
We often get questions about how our Zymessence® compares against other systemic enzyme products. And very often in advertising, other products will compare themselves to Zymessence®. Since companies most often compare their products to what they believe is the leading product of its kind on the market or the product they think is their closest competition, the fact that they choose to compare themselves to us tells you a lot in and of itself!
Comparison Question #1: Zymessence® Compared: As to how the Zymessence® compares to the other systemic enzyme products?
Point #1) It's impossible to do label comparisons and know which systemic enzyme product will actually work when ingested. And, here's why: Due to differences in:
1) Who a company gets its enzyme raw materials from (this is a super important point to ensure active enzymes are put into a product).
2) How those raw materials were fermented and/or extracted by the maker.
3) How they and the receiving company store its enzymes as raw materials.
4) If they stabilize the enzymes or not, stabilization means putting the enzymes to "sleep" in suspended animation; (this is SUPER DUPER IMPORTANT to keep enzymes "alive" and "active". Unfortunately, most enzyme making firms and enzyme packaging firms have ZERO idea on how to stabilize an enzyme to keep it from becoming 'awake' and 'active' before ingestion. If the enzymes become active while in the pill or capsule, the enzymes will then eat each other and then themselves degrading the overall enzymatic activity of the product before you get to take it!!!!)
5) The speed at which the different enzymes were blended together and then tableted or encapsulated, (faster = heat = enzyme death).
6) The humidity and temperature in the plant during the above mentioned operations and during storage.
7) Finally, if any enteric coatings or enteric matrixing is done, which enteric protective material is used and how much is used.
All these factors have a bearing on how well an enzyme product works when taken. AND, those factors are more important than what the label states was thrown into the mixer at the time of blending.
In the end, as Dr. Wong is notorious for saying:
"The proof of the pudding is in the eating!" This is why of the nearly 100+ systemic enzyme products in the US market today, only a handful actually have a physiological action in the body when taken.
Comparision Question #2: Nattokinase: On products that tout they have nattokinase and on how great nattokinase is; why does Zymessence® not have nattokinase?
Point #2) Dr. Wong HATES nattokinase. Of all the proteolytic enzymes it is the only one that does not have a feedback mechanism to let it know when to stop lysing, (i.e. eating) blood proteins.
In nature nattokinase is always found with Vitamin K1 and that prevents the blood from becoming overly thin when eating the natto curd and taking in the nattokinase enzyme. When the nattokinase is extracted from that curd, the Vitamin K is left behind. So, of all the proteolytic enzymes it is the one most likely to create the danger of overly thin blood and cause hemorrhagic bleeding issues. We've spoken to two docs, one of whom is a very famous alternative doc, who got both themselves and their patients in bleeding trouble by using what were modest dosing levels of nattokinase. So, again, this is why there is NO nattokinase in any of our products!
Comparison Question #3: Milligrams vs Activity Units: Why don't you tell us how many milligrams of each enzyme are in your product?
Point #3) Any systemic enzyme product whose label tells you the milligram amount of any enzyme in a product is not telling you anything. Enzymes are measure by activity not milligrams. All enzymes as raw materials come in strengths, stronger and weaker versions of the same enzyme (i.e. industrial grade, the various food grades vs pharmaceutical grade). For example, the extract potency for Pancreatin starts with a 10x - 12x now being the strongest available and 4x being relatively weak. You can have one milligram of a particular enzyme with 100,000 units of activity while 100mg of the same enzyme from a different enzyme maker might have only 50 units of activity. So, milligram measurements tell you nothing about the strength of an enzyme. Zymessence® uses only the top strength enzymes in its blend!
While the enzymes that go into a blending machine might have a particular amount of activity when fresh, if the blending and tableting process is not done correctly for enzymes the enzymatic activity of the finished product will be less due to the process having inactivated (killed) the enzymes.
Product makers who don't actually take and use their own products have ZERO idea as to whether any particular product actually works or not. Don't rely on sales staff to tell you how well a product works. It's their job to tell you the stuff is great regardless of how dead and useless it might be. Remember that most of the sales personnel in the nutritional industry are not health professionals nor are they the health minded folks that those in the health food stores might be; for them it's a job, selling vitamins or used cars or furniture it's all the same.
Everything we build at WAM Essentials, Inc. we personally use. We're the first ones to know whether a product actually works or not. We have no sales staff here, just customer service representatives to take customer orders. No one works on commission, no one answering the phone gives off the wall false claim answers on a products abilities or health advice. We don't sell anything that we don't think works and we get rid of products that give us less-than-desired results or we revise the products if we feel we can make the formula work better (new data always helps us here).