Every chemical reaction needs a catalyst that will help to speed up the reaction process and enzymes are proteins that help to increase the rate of chemical reactions inside our body.
Enzymes are present in almost every biological cell because every biological cell undergoes a chemical reaction at some point in time. Chemical reactions are important because they help us survive and therefore, enzymes play an important role in keeping us alive. Although, enzymes are not a part of chemical reactions they help in assisting the chemical reactions and therefore, they are very much required by every living being on the planet.
Enzymes lower the activation energy, thus make the rate of reactions much faster.
Every enzyme has a complex structure and therefore, they are designed for specific reactions inside our body. However, like most proteins they are long chain of amino acids that has its own individual properties that finally form into a complex protein.
All enzymes are specific. Each enzyme can synthesize only one compound.
In an average human body, there are more than 75000 enzymes that work continuously to speed up different chemical reactions happening inside our body. They are really fast, they can perform up to 10 chemical reactions per second. Without enzymes, it would take us years to convert our food into starch or any other digestible product. Hence, they greatly speed up our digestion process, which is helpful for our sheer existence.
