C O N T R I B U T E :  D I G E S T I V E  S Y S T E M 
 
 

Digestive system

Most of you seem unsatisfied with the information here so I thought I'd add a little. Feel free to e-mail me if you need anything specific, I just may be able to help you and I check my e-mail around 4 or 5 times a day

THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM

The digestive tract is a long tube extending through the body. It begins in the mouth and ends at the anus where solid waste material is discharged. The tube is about nine metres long. Digestion of food begins in the mouth. Saliva, produced by the salivary glands, contains an enzyme, which breaks down starch foods into simpler sugars. An enzyme is a chemical which speeds up chemical reactions without being changed itself. The food travels from the mouth to the oesophagus which is a soft flexible tube. Powerful muscular action, called peristalsis, pushes the food down into the stomach.

THE STOMACH

When the food reaches the stomach it is mixed with gastric juices and churned around by muscular action. Gastric juices are produced by the stomach wall and consist of hydrochloric acid, the enzymes renin and pepsin, and water. The hydrochloric acid helps to kill any microbes and helps the enzymes to work (they will only function in the presence of an acid). Pepsin and rennin break down the proteins in food into simpler substances called amino acids

THE SMALL INTESTINE

The process of peristalsis pushes the partly digested food from the stomach into the small intestine. Digestive juices from the liver and pancreas, as well as from the wall of the small intestine, assist in completing digestion. One of the digestive juices, bile, is made in the liver and helps to change fats and oils into minute droplets. It also contains sodium hydrogen carbonate, an alkali that helps neutralise stomach acid. The pancreas produces enzymes which further digest proteins, starch, fats and oils. The walls of the small intestine are covered with small, protruding, finger like structures called villi. Digested food molecules pass through the walls of the villi into blood vessels

THE LARGE INTESTINE

The substances in food that cant be digested pass into the large intestine. Water and salt are absorbed from the large intestine into the bloodstream but any remaining matter collects in the rectum and then passes out of the body through the anus. This mainly solid mass is called faeces.
 
 

Contributed by: Lara Lawler <lawler_lara@yahoo.com>
Country: australia
Age: 13
Wednesday, March 01, 2000 at 22:08:33 (EST)

BEGINNING OF THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM

Digestion is when you eat the food and the nutrients in the food are absorbed for growth, and replacement and renourishment of the body.yes, your teeth and your mouth is a part of the digestion process.It starts in your mouth, your teeth grind and chew the food down and the tounge, which is a powerful muscle, roatates the food and pushes it down to the back of your mouth which is called the esophagus. When the pores of the tounge senses the food, it activates salivary glands and the saliva comes about to lubricate the food, so that the food can easily go through the throat.if this helps you by any thats good. I'm trying to do my bio lab, so I just wrote down what I interpreted from other sites and information.
 
 

Contributed by: panda <sky_blue_sea_blue@hotmail.com>
Country: Canada
Age: 16
Thursday, September 16, 1999 at 23:35:37 (EDT)

The average time tkaen to totally digest the food you have taken in is 72hrs.
 
 

Contributed by: jessie <savvj24@hotmail.com>
Country: USA
Age: 15

Sunday, September 05, 1999 at 17:51:41 (EDT)
Great info, but...

You had really godd info, but a little bit too succinct and also the graphics were not great. I was surfing through the internet looking for aricles on the Digestive System (I had a project to do), and your site was good but not great. I give it a 7.5 out of 10 of the jonometer.
 
 

Contributed by: jon m.w. <jonathan.mcphedran@tednet.oise.utoronto.ca>
Country: canada
Age: 13
Thursday, January 29, 1998 at 20:05:27 (EST)
 
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