Functions

of
The Digestive system
 function
• The processes of digestion include six activities:
Ingestion, Propulsion, Mechanical or physical digestion,
chemical digestion, Absorption, and Elimination.
The first of these processes is:
Ingestion:
it is the process of eating. It refers to the entry of food into
the alimentary canal through the mouth. The food is chewed
and mixed with the saliva which contain enzymes that begin
breaking down the carbohydrates in the food and some lipid
digestion via lingual lipase.
• Chewing increases the surface area of the food and
allows an appropriately sized bolus to be produced.
• Food leaves the mouth when the tongue and pharyngeal
muscles propel it into the esophagus. This act of
swallowing, the last voluntary act until defecation, is
known as propulsion, which refers to the movement of
food through the digestive tract.
Propulsion:
• It is the movement of food along the digestive tract. The
major means of propulsion is known as peristalsis, it is a
series of alternating contractions and relaxations of
smooth muscle that lines the walls of the digestive organs
and forces the food to move forward.
• It includes both the voluntary process of swallowing and
the involuntary process of peristalsis.
• Peristalsis consists of sequential alternating waves of
contraction and relaxation of alimentary wall smooth
muscles, which act to propel food. These waves also play
a role in mixing food with digestive juices.
Digestion:
• It includes both mechanical and chemical process.
• Mechanical digestion is the process of physically
breaking down food into smaller pieces. This process
begins with the chewing of food and continues with the
muscular churning of the stomach.
• it is a purely physical process that does not change the
chemical nature of the food. It makes the food smaller to
increase both surface area and mobility.
• It includes mastication or chewing as well as tongue
movements that help break food into smaller bits and mix
food with saliva. It also occurs after the food leaves the
mouth. The mechanical churning of food in the stomach
serves to further break it apart and expose more of its
surface area to digestive juices creating an acidic “soup”
called chyme.
• Additional churning occurs in the small intestine through
muscular constriction of the intestinal wall. This process is
called Segmentation. It is similar to peristalsis, except
that the rhythmic timing of the muscle constrictions forces
the food backward and forward rather than forward only.
• Segmentation occurs mainly in the small intestine which
consists of localized contractions of circular muscle of the
muscularis layer of the alimentary canal.
• These contractions help the intestine in moving their
contents back and forth while continuously breaking up
and mixing the contents.
• The movement of the food back and forth in the intestinal
lumen by segmentation mixes the food with the digestive
juices and facilitates absorption.
• Chemical digestion: it is the process of chemically
breaking down food into simpler molecules. The process
is carried out by enzymes in the stomach and small
intestines.
• Chemical digestion starts in the mouth, the digestive
secretions break down complex food molecules into their
chemical building blocks (for example: proteins is broken
into separate amino acids).
• These secretions vary in composition but typically contain
water, various enzymes, acids, and salts. The process is
completed in the small intestine.
Absorption:
• It is the movement of molecules (by passive diffusion or
active transport) from the digestive tract to adjacent blood
and lymphatic vessels. Absorption is the entrance of the
digested food (now called nutrients) into the body.
• Food that has been broken down is of no value to the
body unless it enters the bloodstream and its nutrients are
put to work. This occurs through the process
of absorption which takes place primarily within the
small intestine.
• Most nutrients are absorbed from the lumen of the
alimentary canal into the bloodstream through the
epithelial cells that make up the mucosa.
• Lipids are absorbed into lacteals and are transported via
the lymphatic vessels to the bloodstream (the subclavian
veins near the heart)
Elimination:
• The final step in digestion is the elimination of undigested
food content and waste products. The undigested food
material enters the colon, where most of the water is
reabsorbed.
• The colon is also the home to the micro flora called
“intestinal flora” that aid in the digestion process.
• The semi-solid waste is moved through the colon by
peristaltic movements of the muscle and is stored in the
rectum.
• As the rectum expands in response to storage of fecal
matter, it triggers the neural signals required to set up the
urge to eliminate. The solid waste is eliminated through
the anus using peristaltic movements of the rectum.
• Defecation is the process of eliminating undigested
material through the anus.
• Defecation is the final step in digestion, the undigested
materials are removed from the body as feces.
 Metabolism of Nutrients
Carbohydrates:
• The digestion of carbohydrates begins in the mouth.
• In the Mouth: The salivary enzyme amylase begins the
breakdown of food starches into maltose.
• As the bolus of food travels through the esophagus to the
stomach, no significant digestion of carbohydrates takes
place.
• The esophagus produces no digestive enzymes but
produces mucous for lubrication.
• In the Stomach: The acidic environment in the stomach
stops the action of the amylase enzyme.
• The next step of carbohydrate digestion takes place in the
duodenum.
• In the Duodenum: The “chyme” from the stomach enters
the duodenum and mixes with the digestive secretions
from the pancreas, liver and gallbladder.
• Pancreatic juices contain amylase which continues the
breakdown of starch and glycogen into maltose a
disaccharide.
• The disaccharides are broken down into monosaccharides
by enzymes called maltases, sucrases and lactases,
which are also present in the brush border of the small
intestinal wall.
•
• Maltase breaks down maltose into glucose. Other
disaccharides such as sucrose and lactose are broken down
by sucrase and lactase respectively.
• Sucrase breaks down sucrose (or “table sugar”) into
glucose and fructose.
• Lactase breaks down lactose (or “milk sugar”) into
glucose and galactose.
• The monosaccharides (glucose) thus produced are
absorbed and then can be used in metabolic pathways to
produce energy.
• The monosaccharides are transported across the
intestinal epithelium into the bloodstream to be
transported to the different cells in the body. These are
the steps in carbohydrate digestion.
Protein:
• A large part of protein digestion takes place in the
stomach.
• In the Stomach: The enzyme pepsin plays an important
role in the digestion of proteins by breaking down the
intact protein to peptides, which are short chains of four
to nine amino acids.
• In the duodenum: Other enzymes like trypsin, elastase,
and chymotrypsin act on the peptides reducing them to
smaller peptides.
• Trypsin elastase, carboxypeptidase, and chymotrypsin are
produced by the pancreas and released into the duodenum
where they act on the chyme.
• Further breakdown of peptides to single amino acids is
aided by enzymes called peptidases (those that break
down peptides).
• Specifically, carboxypeptidase, dipeptidase,
and aminopeptidase play important roles in reducing the
peptides to free amino acids. The amino acids are
absorbed into the bloodstream through the small
intestines.
Lipids:
• Lipid digestion begins in the stomach with the aid of
lingual lipase and gastric lipase.
• The bulk of lipid digestion occurs in the small intestine
due to pancreatic lipase.
• When “chyme” enters the duodenum the hormonal
responses trigger the release of bile, which is produced in
the liver and stored in the gallbladder.
• Bile aids in the digestion of lipids, primarily triglycerides
by emulsification.
• Emulsification is a process in which large lipid globules
are broken down into several small lipid globules.
• These small globules are more widely distributed in the
chyme.
• Lipids are hydrophobic substances. In the presence of
water, they aggregate to form globules to minimize
exposure to water.
• Bile contains bile salts, which are amphipathic, meaning
they contain hydrophobic and hydrophilic parts.
• Thus, the bile salt’s hydrophilic side can interface with
water on one side and the hydrophobic side interfaces
with lipids on the other.
• By doing so, bile salts emulsify large lipid globules into
small lipid globules.
• Pancreatic juices contain enzymes called lipases (enzymes
that break down lipids).
• If the lipid in the chyme aggregates into large globules,
very little surface area of the lipids is available for the
lipases to act on, leaving lipid digestion incomplete.
• By forming an emulsion, bile salts increase the available
surface area of the lipids many fold. The pancreatic lipases
can then act on the lipids more efficiently and digest them.
• Lipases break down the lipids into fatty acids and
glycerides.
• These molecules can pass through the plasma membrane
of the cell and enter the epithelial cells of the intestinal
lining.