Human Digestive System

The entire human body is an absolutely amazing creation. We were made extremely complex and today’s doctors are finding out more and more pieces to the puzzle that is the human body, but one of the more fascinating parts of studying the human body is the human digestive system.

All of the “action” begins in your mouth. Granted it is where you put the food in, and we’ve definitely got that down pat, but it is also actually where the stage is set for digestion of that food. You see, as you begin to chew the food, a number of important things are taking place, though we’re really not aware of them.

When you chew on the food, which the scientists call mastication, it is done because we want to have smaller pieces of the food to be able to swallow it. Too large pieces, and we may die with large food stuck in our esophagus.

However, we also chew because having smaller pieces will allow the nutrients that are in that food to be released to enable your body to make use of those nutrients, as part of our human digestive system. That’s why it’s called nourishment.

Somehow, and let’s face it, science does not have all the answers, by chewing you are also placing your body on notification as to what kind of food it is, so that your body can release the proper enzymes that will break down the food properly.

Many cartoons have used this factor as comedy, but it’s true that based on the chemical consistency of your food, your body actually knows what to send to take care of it. Those enzymes are part of what’s called salivary amylase, an enzyme that breaks down some of the starches we eat into dextrin and maltose. That’s a good part of why we make saliva, to carry forth those enzymes into the human digestive system. That action is called salivation.

Next you swallow, using the saliva as well as your tongue and of course your throat muscles. The food reaches your stomach where new enzymes can take over now. This time it’s an enzyme called pepsin, whose job it to degrade your food proteins into what’s called peptides, which will later be released into the bloodstream.

Eventually the peptides, and all the enzymes including the waste that’s left is dumped into the small intestine. Remember we are still in the human digestive system! There the contents are worked upon by pancreatic juice as well as bile. The bile takes the fats in the small intestine and melts it. Carbohydrates are also handled there.

Peptide fragments will need to be further broken down so that proteins may be digested; they are called trypsinogen and chymotrypsinogen. Their jobs are to keep breaking the peptide fragments into smaller and smaller fragments. The final part of all this is done in the human digestive system by aminopeptidases.

Other post you may be interested in reading: roux en y and gastric lymphoma

Human Digestive System

the human digestive system

Human Digestive System

Related Articles: