A major digestive enzyme in the human body is lipase. This digestive enzyme in your gut is responsible for breaking down dietary fats into fatty acids that can easily be absorbed in your intestinal tract. Let's explore Lipase as a supplement and how it can support good health. 

Top Health Benefits of Lipase Supplements

Digestive Benefits

Lipase is an enzyme that helps to break down any fat in the foods that we eat. When fat is broken down, it becomes free fatty acids, which are then absorbed in our small intestine. Once absorbed, fatty acids are used by our bodies to repair our cell membranes and as an alternate energy source. The proper digestion of fat is required for the absorption of the fat-soluble vitamins: A, D, E and K.

Lipase & Fat

Sadly, lipase is restricted to the digestive tract and when you take it as a supplement, it will not digest your body’s fat stores. Lipase helps us to absorb more of our dietary fat. This is important to ensure the health of our skin, cell membranes, and cardiovascular health. Taking lipase as a weight loss supplement will leave you sadly disappointed.

Key Symptoms of A Lipase Deficiency

When the body does not produce sufficient lipase, it cannot properly digest fats into its fatty acid building blocks. When fat is not broken down in the digestive tract, fat-soluble vitamins such as vitamins A, D, E, and K cannot be absorbed. Over time deficiencies in these vitamins can develop. At the same time, the fat that is not digested and absorbed higher in the digestive tract continues down the intestines; Some of it may be digested by gut bacteria but most will continue through the digestive tract and pass into the stool. This passing of undigested fat results in symptoms that can alert you to a deficiency of lipase in your gut. One sign is steatorrhea, which is the presence of obvious fat in the stool. It can appear as fat globules or an oil slick on the surface of the toilet water. Another sign of less severe lipase deficiency is pale stools that float on the surface of the water.

Taking Lipase Supplements: Potency & Formats

Lipase can be found in several different digestive aid supplements, often in combination with other digestive enzymes such as amylase and protease. The recommended dosage for lipase depends on your natural body chemistry and the fat content in the foods that you are eating. It also depends on the source and activity of the enzyme preparation. A dose of between 8,000 and 24,000 USP units of lipase activity daily can be considered as a general recommendation. It is based on suggested pancreatin supplementation. Please note that the dosing on many of these supplements is confusing, where the amount per gram may be listed when the actual dose is a fraction of that (e.g. 50mg is 0.05g). In general, because of the lack of standardization, dosing lipase will require a bit of trial and error on your part.