The Digestive System

The Digestive System [IMAGE] The main part of the digestive system is the digestive tract. This is like a long tube, some nine metres in total, through the middle of the body. It starts at the mouth, where food and drink enter the body, and finishes at the anus, where leftover food and wastes leave the body Mouth Teeth bite off and chew food into a soft pulp that is easy to swallow. Chewing mixes the food with watery saliva, from 6 salivary glands around the mouth and face, to make it moist and slippery. Oesophagus The oesophagus, or gullet, is a muscular tube. It takes food from the throat and pushes it down through the neck, and into the stomach. It moves food by waves of muscle contraction called peristalsis. Stomach The stomach has thick muscles in its wall. These contract to mash the food into a sloppy soup. Also the stomach lining produces strong digestive juices. These attack the food in a chemical way, breaking down and dissolving its nutrients. Pancreas The pancreas, like the stomach, makes powerful digestive juices called enzymes which help to digest food further as it enters the small intestines. Gall Bladder

This small bag like part is tucked under the liver. It stores fluid called bile, which is made in the liver. As food from a meal arrives in the small intestine, bile flows from the gall bladder along the bile duct into the intestine. It helps to digest fatty foods and also contains wastes for removal. Small Intestines This part of the tract is narrow, but very long - about 20 feet. Here, more enzymes continue the chemical attack on the food. Finally the nutrients are small enough to pass through the lining of the small intestine, and into the blood. They are carried away to the liver and other body parts to be processed, stored and distributed. Liver Blood from the intestines flows to the liver, carrying nutrients, vitamins and minerals, and other products from digestion. The liver is like a food-processing factory with more than 200 different jobs. It stores some nutrients, changes them from one form to another, and releases them into the blood according to the activities and needs of the body. Large Intestine Any useful substances in the leftovers, such as spare water and body minerals, are absorbed through the walls of the large intestine, back into the blood. The remains are formed into brown, semi-solid faeces, ready to be removed from the body. Rectum and Anus The end of the large intestine and the next part of the tract, the rectum, store the faeces. These are finally squeezed through a ring of muscle, the anus, and out of the body. Starch Starch is a build up from a large number of glucose monomers which is called a polysaccharide. In the digestive of starch there are two main

steps which are: 1. Breaking down starch to maltose 2. breaking down maltose to glucose Starch is broken down to maltose of glucose by enzymes amylase which is produced in the salivary glands. By chewing we break food mechanically and salivary amylase found in saliva begins the process of chemical breakdown. When food is placed in the mouth, the salivary glands immediately secrete saliva, which brings about the digestion of starch into maltose. Sometimes just the sight of food can result in the secretion of the saliva. This type of response is called a reflex action. The disadvantage of this is that your body is ready to digest the food immediately it is ready in your mouth. However, food is normally not in the mouth long enough to permit complete digestion and little nutrient absorption takes place in the mouth. Salivary amylase works in slightly alkaline conditions, it is quite relatively important in digestion. After food has been swallowed the PH changes rapidly as it passes through acid conditions in the stomach. The pancreas also secretes amylase. Most of the food which we eat is hydrolysed to maltose by pancreatic amylase. The pancreatic enzymes secreted into the small intestine which contains amylase which breaks down starches into a disaccharide called maltose. The second stage in starch digestion takes place in the small intestines. The small intestines produce an enzyme called maltase which hydrolyses maltose to glucose. In the intestines, enzymes such as maltase and lactase break disaccharides into single sugars, such as glucose. When adults and older children do not have enough lactase to digest lactose (the sugar in milk) lactose intolerance results and milk cannot be completely digested. Maltase breaks a molecule of maltose into two molecules of glucose. Then the glucose molecules are absorbed in the cell or released into the lumen to be absorbed further along the small intestines.

Proteins Protein digestion starts with stomach enzymes (proteases) such as pepsin that break apart specific links in the amino acid chains that comprise proteins. These chains are reduced to a much shorter lengths, called peptides and peptones. The partially digested proteins move onto the small intestine where pancreatic protease continues digestion, breaking the peptides (which is activated in the stomach by acid) and peptones into individual amino acids which are absorbed directly or attached to minerals, thus allowing mineral absorption. [IMAGE] The image above is of the enzyme 'pepsin' Pepsin and trypsin are both an Endopeptidase. However pepsin is secreted by the gastric glands in the stomach which is secreted in an inactive form called pepsinogen. The stomach is popular for secreting hydrochloric acid. The acid and pepsin formed together converts pepsinogen into pepsin. Below is the equation: Hydrochloric acid

Pepsin [IMAGE]Pepsinogen pepsin Whereas trypsin is secreted by pancreas, this is also secreted in an inactive form similar to the pepsin. The inactive form of trypsin is converted to trypsin by an enzyme called enterokinase. This enzyme is secreted by the walls of the small intestines. Lipids Lipase is an enzyme which is secreted by the pancreas, it digested triglycerides. Lipase is broken to produce glycerol, monoglycerides

and fatty acids. Lipase breaks down triglycerides much more effectively if they are dispersed to form an emulsion. Bile emulsifies fat into tiny droplets; this causes a large surface area for lipase. Bile is made in the liver and is stored in the gall bladder before being secreted into small intestines. It contains bile salts which make sure the triglycerides stay as an emulsion. Bibliography: Mostly my information was gathered from the internet, I also used a different source which was a biology book as listed below. I got my data from the websites listed below; I also got my information from a biology A2 text book. The gathered the images of the enzymes from 'goggle images' http://users.tpg.com.au/users/amcgann/body/digestive.html http://www.bulkmsm.com/AyurvedicHerbalMSM/p44.htm

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