Where Your Health Begins

There are some things we barely know how it happened. There are more than meets the eye. This article will talk about digestion and the process we do not bother to take time to learn. When we eat certain food, bread for example, only the extracted nutrients are needed by our body to obtain necessary energy to keep us going. It is the digestive system that processed and broken down food into smaller molecules because our cells cannot absorb nutritional benefits unless food is digested properly. These statements are common facts we understand and figure out. And to give our readers a wider perspective, this scientific piece of writing will bring about the process of how our digestive system works inside our body.

General Idea
To give an overview, the digestive system is like passageways, long and twisted tubes that connected to the mouth down to the anus, if extended, it would take about 24 inches long. There are super friends of hollow organs inside our body working together to complete the process of digestion including the mouth, stomach, esophagus, small, and large intestine.

First and Foremost: The Brain and the Mouth

To start with, from the moment we smell the food, the brain take the signal and control the mouth’s salivary glands to secrete more saliva with antibacterial compounds to breakdown food molecules and makes the food easier to chew and swallow. Take note that that this “amylase” enzyme in saliva can break down the nutrients. The role of the teeth will grind the food as it prepares the food for swallowing, while the tongue pushes the food toward the throat down to the esophagus.

HEADS UP! : There are two possible pathways to go through after food is swallowed. One is the esophagus connecting to stomach; another is the trachea going to the lungs. And the right way, of course, should be the esophagus which we all know. You may wonder why foods we ingested can mistakenly reroute at the wrong place like lungs; it is simply because some people are talking or laughing aside from breathing while eating. It happens very rarely because in general, once food is swallowed, it slides down through upper esophageal sphincter, a muscle that opens only when we swallow food. Lessons learned: make sure to observe proper eating.

The Second Stop: Esophagus

What happens inside the esophagus is fascinating to be familiar with. To visualize how long esophagus is, it is 10 inches in length. There is a process known peristalsis; the involuntary muscle contraction that pushes the food toward the stomach and the lower esophageal sphincter which is responsible to safeguard the food from coming back into the stomach. What is the risk if it does not work just the way it is? This is the time that people complain from heartburn and gastroesophageal reflux which are likely to experience when stomach acids splatter into the esophagus.

The Temporary Food Storage: Stomach

This organ is big with strong muscular walls that mix food into semi-fluid mixture and secretes gastric juice. Stomach serves as temporary storage and food processor after food is swallowed. Inside the stomach, smooth muscles are contracted and turned food into liquefied chime or the semi-fluid mixture that was mentioned earlier, though some are turned into solid substance released in the small intestine in less than an hour.

The Last Stop: Small and Large Intestine

We are very familiar about the small and large intestines in our digestive tract. But were you informed during your science class which is responsible in absorbing food and liquid? Normally, foods are absorbed by small intestine; while water, any liquid, and the excretion of solid waste are absorbed by the large intestine. Have no mistake about it.

There are three sections in small intestine which are duodenum and jejunum where the chime is broken down, and ileum which is for absorbing nutrients and carrying it into the bloodstream. After food entered into the stomach, the other organs, the gallbladder and the pancreas release digestive juices and it is the small intestine that most of the nutrients can absorbed. On the other hand, the large intestine is the large bowel consisting of 3 sections which are cecum (the short pouch which opens to receive the chewed food from the ileum), colon (absorbs the water and reduces the fiber in the feces or stool) and rectum (the lower part of the large intestine located between the colon and anal canal).
To know how these intestines are working inside the digestive system, see the process below:

First, the role of the small intestine, with the help of villi and microvilli (present in the surface of small intestine), is to absorb the nutrients and pass through the intestine wall, then into the blood vessels, and lastly, all throughout the body.
Remember, all the extracted juices from foods are absorbed by large intestine and this is the last stop of all the leftover waste or remnants. Therefore, all the indigestible parts go there to produce the solid waste. It is what we called “feces” or commonly known as stool or poop.
Unlike small intestine wherein waste products are eliminated in a matter of hours, it takes days before the wastes are removed in the colon.

If you wonder how long it takes to complete the digestion: on average, it usually takes 40-45 hours before food remnants pass trough the entire digestive tract.

TRIVIA: We have millions of bacteria in our body and the feces are only three parts of water and 1 part solid. The component of bacteria is 30%, the indigestible matter like excess fiber is 30%, and the rest of 40% are the inorganic bodily wastes like processed chemicals and old red blood cells.

The Other 3 Important Organs Contributing to Healthy Digestion
Liver – located in the upper abdomen and main function is to aid the digestion and removes waste products and other used up cells from the blood. It synthesizes and metabolizes the protein, fats, and carbohydrates. Also, it secretes bile acids that help intestinal absorption of fat soluble vitamins.

Pancreas- located in the upper abdomen that is only 6 inches long and lies at the back adjacent to small intestine. After the liver synthesized the protein, carbohydrates, and fats; the pancreas is in charge to complete breaking down these nutrients using digestive juices of pancreas and the secreted juices of the intestines.

Gallbladder – located behind the liver and in the right side of rib cage. The small pear shaped sack acts as temporary storage house of bile; the bitter yellow fluid consists of digestive waste materials, until these are needed to be processed by the intestine.

The Process of Digesting Fats

The complex molecules of dietary fats do not dissolve easily in water and not easily broken down in the gastrointestinal tract. To make it possible to break down the fat, it has to be mixed with the enzyme called lipase, the enzyme for digesting protein and fat.

The bile cannot easily absorbed fat and as the process, it moves into mucosa cells lining of the intestines and normally absorbed by blood and becomes stored fats in different areas of the body.

The Process of Digesting Vitamins

The small intestine can absorb vitamins, however, only the water soluble vitamins can be absorbed easily with water and can travel via blood vessels. On the other hand, fat-soluble vitamins are similarly processed like fats and stored for certain period of time in lipocytes cell.

Digestive Problems

Poor nutrition and faulty diet contribute to digestive problems. It has been number one widespread problem in the North America and probably in some other countries as well. Common ailments in relation to digestive tract are heartburn (burning sensation of the abdomen up to the chest area), ulcer (unexplained stomach pain), gallstones (seems like little pebbles made of bile salts and cholesterol), lactose intolerance (lack of enzyme to digest properly the sugar content of milk), diverticulitis (abnormal bulges in the intestinal tract wall), inflammatory bowel disease ( complains of abdominal pain and sometimes having diarrhea), and constipation ( unable to make bowel movement).

In cases people experience more serious health problems concerning digestion, it is recommended to seek for health professional’s advice. Drink more water, eat vegetables and fruits, choose more fiber food, and learn to chew effectively are some helpful basic information that we commonly hear, but nonetheless, always taken for granted. In the process, we are just hurting our internal organs resulting to its uncontrolled malfunction as we trigger them to break down and lead us to suffer in the end.