One demonstration of P.T. Barnum’s maxim that there’s a sucker born every minute is that new “reducing aids” regularly appear on the market. An eat-all-you-want nostrum, which was touted as a “starch blocker” [and which the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) eventually banned], contained an amylase-inhibiting enzyme extracted from beans. If this substance had really worked as advertised, which it did not, what unpleasant side effects would have resulted from its ingestion with a starch-containing meal? Discuss why this substance, which inhibits amylase in vitro, would not do so in the intestines after oral ingestion.