Digestive System

• Digestion begins with chewing, where food is mechanically broken down to make it easier to swallow.
• Swallowing involves moving food from the mouth to the stomach through a series of muscular contractions called peristalsis.
• The digestive tract is also called the alimentary canal or the gastrointestinal tract.
• Mouth - Where food enters the alimentary canal and digestion begins.
• Salivary glands - Produce saliva containing amylase.
• Pharynx - Known as the throat that gets food from the mouth to esophagus.
• Esophagus - carries food to stomach by peristalsis (wave like contractions).
• Liver - Produces bile and hold bile.
• Stomach - partially digest the food (chyme)
• Gallbladder - stores bile.
• Pancrease - Produces 3 digestive enzymes.
• Small Intestines - Produces digestive enzyme and absorbs food which has been digested.
• Appendix has no known function.
• Large Intestines - Stores undigested food and re absorbs water.
• Rectum - holds undigested food until elimination.
• Anus - Opening through which undigested food is eliminated.
• An enzyme is a protein that speeds up chemical reactions in the body.
• Proteases that digest proteins and nucleases that digest nucleic acids.
• Amylase - Produced in the mouth. it helos break down large starch molecules into smaller sugar molecules.
• Pepsin- produced in the stomach. Pepsin helps break down proteins into amino acids.
• Trypsin - produced in the pancreas Trypsin also breaks down proteins.
• Pancreatic Lipase- produced in the pancreas. It is used to break apart fats.
• Deoxyribonuclease and ribunoclease are enzymes produced in the pancrease. They are enzymes that break bonds in nucleic acids like DNA and RNA.
• Bile salts are bile acids that help to break down fat.
• Ingestion- intake of food which happens in the mouth.
• Digestion - breaking down of food so that it cam be absorbed by the body.
• Mechanical Digestion is when large pieces of food that are ingested have to be broken into smaller particles that can be acted upon by various enzymes.
• Another word for chewing is mastication.
• Chemical Digestion is the complex molecules of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats are transformed by chemical digestion into smaller molecules that can be absorbed and utilised by the cells. Uses Hydrolysis.
• Hydrolysis - uses water and digestive enzyme to break down the complex molecules.
• Absorbtion - The process of absorption food in the form of nutrients into the bkood stream of the body. This occurs in the small Intestine. Water absorption happens in the large intestine.
• Assimilation - the process of nutrients being absorbed by each cell of the body in the form of energy. Assimilation of nutrients happens in the small intestines.
• Your small Intestines is equipped with tiny projections called microvilli on the surface of cells lining the intestines, called epithelial cells. This is where the absorbed foor reaches the cells via the liver.
• Egestion - secretion of waste, unwanted, and excess substances from the body after the food has been digested. This takes place in the anus.