In: Anatomy and Physiology
an essay about the digestive system.
Your essay should contain some physiology and some appropriate chemistry. It should explain how the anatomical structures of the digestive system are well suited to perform the functions that they do. Your essay could include a discussion of the role of the accessory organs in digestion. Your essay could discuss the chemical reactions that constitute the breakdown of complex molecules into simple molecules. It could follow in detail how the digestion and absorption of protein or carbohydrate or lipid occurs (or all three in less detail). It may also discuss how the processes of digestion are controlled.
The function of digestive system is digestion of food and absorption.
The structures in the digestive system involves the mouth with its teeth for grinding the food, and its tongue, which serves to knead food and mix it with saliva, the throat, or pharynx, the esophagus, the stomach, the small intestine, consisting of the duodenum, the jejunum, and the ileum, and the large intestine which terminate in the rectum.
Accessory organs which supports digestion are liver, gall bladder, pancreas.
Liver produce bile which digest lipids.
Gall bladder stores bile until it secreted directly into the first section of small intestine.
Pancreas produce enzymes that break down protein, carbohydrate, lipids. It produce hormone insulin which regulates blood glucose levels. It produce sodium bicarbonate, which neutralizes stomach acids.
There are two types of digestion: mechanical and chemical.
Mechanical digestion involves physically breaking the food into smaller pieces.
Chemical digestion involves the secretions of enzymes throughout your digestive tract. These enzymes break the chemical bonds that hold food particles together. This allows food to be broken down into small, digestible parts.This simple nutrients can be used by the cells.
Lipids reach undigested in the digestive tract until they reach your small intestine, there bile is present. Bile contains bile salts, which act as an emulsifier of lipids. This breaks the large fat droplets into smaller droplets that are then easier for the fat-digesting enzyme pancreatic lipase to digest.
Protein digestion begins in the stomach by gastric juice , and it is absorbed from the intestine.
carbohydrate digestion involves the break down of disaccharides and complex carbohydrates into monosaccharides for absorption. Digestion begins in the mouth with salivary amylase released during the process of chewing.