How Is Your Food Digested
Saturday, October 22nd, 2011
The digestion system is made up of the digestive tract, a series of hollow organs joined in a long, twisting tube from the mouth to the anus, and other organs that help the body break down and absorb food.
The organs that make up the digestive system are the mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intstine, large intestine, also called the colon-rectum and anus. The organs have a lining inside called the mucosa. The other organs, the mouth, stomach, small intestine, the mucosa contains tiny glands that produce juices to help digest the food. The digestive tract also contains a layer of smooth mucsle that helps breaks food down and move it along the tract.
The liver and the the pancreas, produce digestive juices that reach the intestine through small tubes called ducts. The gallbladder stores the liver’s digestistive juices until they are needed in the intestine. Digestion is the process by which food and drinlk are broken down into their smallest part so the body can use them to build and nourish cells and to provide energy.
Digestion means mixing food with digestive juices moving it through the digestive tract, breaking down large molecules of food into smaller molecules. The process starts in the mouth, when food is chewed and swallowed, and comes to rest in the small intestine.
The first major musle movement is made when the food or drink is swallowed. Your timing of swallowing is your choice, however once you swallow, you no longer have control, it becomes involuntary and proceeds under the control of the nerves.
Swallowed food is pushed into the esophagus which connects the throat above with the stomach below. Where the esophagus and stomach joins there is a ringlike muscle, called the lower esophageal sphincter, closing the passage between the wo organs. As food approaches the closed sphincter, the sphincter relaxes, and allows the food to pass through to the stomach. The stomach then stores all the swallowed food and drink. Then it mixes up the food, drink and digestive liquid produced by the stomach and empties it into the small intestine. Carbohydrates spend the least amount of time int the stomach, while protein stays in the stomach longer, and fats stays the longest. Finally, the digested nutrients are absorbed through the intestial walls and transported throughout the body. The waste products of this process include undigested parts of the food, known as fiber, and older cells that have been shed from the mucosa. These materials are pushed into the colon, where they remain until feces are expelled by a bowel movement.
The major hormones that control the functions of the digestive system are produced and released by cell in the mucosa of the stomach and small blood of the digestive tract, travel back to the heart and through the arteries, and return to the digestive system, where they stimulate digestive juices and cause organ movement. The main hormones that control digestion are gastrin, secretin, and cholecystokinin (CCK). Gastrin causes the stomach to produce an acid for dissolving and digesting some foods. Secretin causes the pancreas to send out a digestive juice that is rich in bicarbonate. The bicarbonate helps neutralize the acid, stomach contents as they enter the small intestine. CCK causes the pancrease to produce the enzymes of pancreatic juice, and causes the gallbladder to empty.
These are the facts, your stomach only serves as a storage place for your food and drinks, until it is passed into other parts of your body in preparation for digestion and finally disposal. Remember your stomach holds fat the longest.

