Enzymes

• What Are Enzymes?
• How Enzymes Work
• Enzyme Reactions

What Are Enzymes

Most enzymes are proteins, but mostly they are catalysts for chemical reactions and are therefore necessary for many chemical processes in nutrition. Enzymes bind temporarily to one or more of the reactants of the reaction they catalyze. In doing so, they lower the amount of activation energy needed and thus speed up the reaction.

How Enzymes Work

There are two types of chemical reactions in the body:

• Enzyme-catalysed
• Uncatalysed

Enzymes themselves do not change, but rather cause changes in chemical processes, or alter the rate of occurance of certain processes in the body. Enzyme-induced chemical reactions are usually highly selective, catalysing only very specific chemical reactions.

Enzyme Reactions

There are a number of enzyme chemical reactions in the body:

• Temperature - heat increases the kinetic energy and serves as a catalysis of enzyme reactions
• PH balance - each enzyme has a ph range
• Concentration of enzyme and substrate
• Inhibitors - chemicals that reduce or stop enzyme catalytic activity