Are enzymes actually absorbed into the bloodstream?

[dihard]

My understanding about the digestion of proteins from college biology is that your digestive tract breaks all proteins down into individual amino acids and amino acids are all that actually pass into your bloodstream. You don't actually have whole cow/milk/etc proteins crossing into your bloodstream. My understanding is also that an enzyme is just a protein and thus would be affected by the same process and simply be broken into amino acids. I'm curious if any researchers have actually taken blood samples and found in tact enzymes floating around the blood.

I've asked on supplement forums and no one seemed to know of any study like this, and their explanation was that I'm right enzymes are broken into amino acids and how they work is through signaling, receptors detecting them in your gut cause a chain reaction of other processes in your body.

I ask because I often see people (a few on here included) make statements like "Serrapeptase/bromelain/etc can actually dissolve scar tissue directly". Yes this is true if you are tenderizing meat on a counter, but has anyone definitely shown that these enzymes are even making it into the bloodstream?

[webslave]

http://ajpgi.physiology.org/content/273/1/G139.abstract

[dihard]

Wow, that's awesome, thanks!

[dihard]

Looking at this again, am I reading this correctly that of the 3grams a day over two days only 10.8 Micrograms (ie ~0.01 milligrams) of the bromelain made it into the bloodstream? That seems incredibly tiny.

[webslave]

Bromelain is added to some phytonutraceuticals to aid absorption.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25661320

If you are interested in bromelain, read a review study that summarised lots of findings
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3529416/