Unit A PART 2 digestive system

• The Purpose of Digestion

  • We eat the bio molecules of other species

  -Carbs, proteins, fats, etc

  • We cannot use them directly so
  • We have to break all the polymers down into monomers > which we then use to make our own bio-molecules

  
  

  • These monomers are then absorbed by our bloodstream > and carried towards cells where they are needed.
• 4 Steps of Digestion

  1. Ingestion> just putting food in our mouth
  2. Digestion> Process of breaking down polymers into monomers
  3. Absorption> these monomers need to be absorbed into our bloodstream
  4. Egestion> The final step
• Enzyme Refresher

  • Digestive enzymes catalyse catabolic reactions
  • for each type of biomolecules we learned about there are many enzymes that work to break down the entire polymers into monomers
• physical vs. chemical digestion

  • Chemical Digestion

  -uses enzymes to break chemical bonds

  • Physical digestion

  -Breaking food into smaller pieces > so that enzymes have more surface area to operate

  -No chemical bonds are broken