Digestive Enzymes
Best-in-class: Bio-Gest
A blend of digestive enzymes plus betaine HCl and bile support to help break down protein, fat and carbohydrate — useful when digestion is sluggish.
How Digestive Enzymes actually works
Broad-spectrum protease, lipase, amylase and often cellulase and lactase, supplementing what the pancreas secretes. They act in the small intestine on whatever has arrived, so they address maldigestion rather than motility or microbiome. Plant and fungal enzymes work across a wider pH range than porcine pancreatin, which matters if stomach acid is low.
Digestive Enzymes quick facts
| Suggested dose | 1–2 capsules with meals. |
| How often | With every meal you need them for - not on a schedule |
| Who it's for | Bloating, heaviness after meals, poor protein/fat digestion, older adults. |
✅ Clinically validated
- Enzyme replacement is established for diagnosed insufficiency (e.g., pancreatic); supports digestion and nutrient absorption.
- Reduces post-meal bloating/fullness in people with low enzyme/acid output.
📊 Correlative data
- Digestive capacity declines with age and stress, tracking with bloating and malabsorption symptoms.
🧪 Theoretical / extrapolated benefits
- Routine use in healthy people is popular but less evidence-backed than use in genuine insufficiency.
These tiers tell you how much human evidence exists — not how well something works. This is the research space, and most of what’s in here is new rather than disproven. Something sitting at “theoretical” usually means nobody has funded the trial, not that the trial was run and failed.
The trap runs the other way too: something can be clinically validated and still do very little for you specifically. A statistically significant result in a study population is not a promise about your body.
- ✅ Clinically validated — human randomised trials or meta-analyses support it. The strongest footing available.
- 📊 Correlative — observational or epidemiological data. Suggestive, and genuinely useful for direction, but it cannot establish cause.
- 🧪 Theoretical / mechanistic — the mechanism is understood and often demonstrated in cells or animals, and the human trial doesn’t exist yet. Unproven is not the same as ineffective. Plenty of what’s standard practice today sat here five years ago.
✗ is a safety flag, not a grade. Where you see it, the concern is harm — not a disappointing trial. A compound tested for one purpose and found not to help there can still be worth studying somewhere else, so a negative result never gets rendered as a cross. It sits alongside the tier, because something can be both well-studied and genuinely risky.
My job is to tell you which one you’re looking at, and let you make the call. Grading something low isn’t me dismissing it — it’s me refusing to oversell it. This is the research space, and being able to reason forward from a mechanism matters as much as waiting for the trial.
Genuinely necessary in pancreatic insufficiency, cystic fibrosis and after pancreatic surgery, where they are medical therapy. Much more variable in ordinary bloating, where the cause is usually fermentation or motility rather than enzyme shortage. The honest test is whether symptoms are worse with fat and protein specifically — if not, enzymes are probably the wrong lever.
Digestive Enzymes — safety & side effects
- GI upset and, occasionally, a burning sensation.
- Do not use pancreatic enzymes to self-treat suspected pancreatic insufficiency — that is a diagnosis (faecal elastase) with a real treatment dose, and getting it wrong means malnutrition continues.
- Papain and bromelain have mild antiplatelet activity. Allergy risk with papaya, pineapple or pork-derived enzymes.
- Caution in active peptic ulcer — enzymes can irritate.
Not medical advice. If you take prescription medication or have a diagnosed condition, check this against it with a pharmacist or doctor — pharmacists are underused and free.
Where to get Digestive Enzymes
Buy Bio-Gest at Thorne →Get the complete breakdown for Digestive Enzymes — inside the Academy alongside the full interactive Vault.
Unlock in the Academy — $10/mo →- When to take it, and what to take it with
- Which form actually absorbs
- Who it's worth it for
- Best-in-class brand pick
- Coach Cam's stacks and notes
Get the complete breakdown for Digestive Enzymes — inside the Academy alongside the full interactive Vault.
Unlock in the Academy — $10/mo →Bloodwork to run alongside Digestive Enzymes
Run these before you start, and again after 8–12 weeks. A baseline you didn’t take is one you can never go back for.
| Marker | What it’s watching for |
|---|---|
| Complete Blood Count (CBC) with Differential | Anaemia is the commonest sign of a gut absorbing badly |
| Ferritin | Iron is the first thing malabsorption takes |
| Vitamin B12 | The second thing, and the one with permanent consequences |
| hs-CRP (High-Sensitivity C-Reactive Protein) | Separates inflammatory bowel disease from IBS |
The Gut Health & Absorption panel covers these in one order — 11 markers, $208.80 with the discount applied.
Check results you already have → · All 102 markers A–Z
Digestive Enzymes — frequently asked questions
What is Digestive Enzymes?
A blend of digestive enzymes plus betaine HCl and bile support to help break down protein, fat and carbohydrate — useful when digestion is sluggish.
What is the suggested dose of Digestive Enzymes?
1–2 capsules with meals. This is a general reference for education only — statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and this is not medical advice.
Where can I find Digestive Enzymes dosing and the full breakdown?
The suggested dose and the full evidence — clinical, correlative and theoretical — are on this page. What's inside the Academy is when to take it, which form actually absorbs, the brand worth buying and Coach Cam's stacks.
Where can I buy Digestive Enzymes?
Coach Cam sources Digestive Enzymes from Thorne, with 10% off auto-applied at checkout — use the buy link on this page.
Build your foundation with Coach Cam
The full Supplement Vault — 350 products across 14 categories with clinical, correlative & theoretical evidence, plus my Thorne partner links — lives inside the Academy alongside 237 peptides.
Join the Academy — $10/mo →What Digestive Enzymes is used for
Digestive Enzymes appears under 1 goal in the Vault’s goal router, grouped by the mechanism it works through rather than by how much trial evidence exists. Each link opens that pathway in full, with the alternatives beside it and the bloodwork that tests it.