Digestion Is So Famous, But Why
Physiology is the study of the normal functioning of the human body. So the question is, how do we get back to normal digestive physiology and why is this an important pursuit? About the perfect diet, we spend a lot of time on ourselves. But the truth is, we all know what that means, Eat healthy a nutritious food.
But how much time do we spend thinking about digestion? After all, the body should only be taken care of, right?
Digestion can define the breakdown of food which allows the absorption of nutrients. Now you’ve all heard “what you’re eating”, but that’s not true at all. You are what you exploit. What is the benefit of eating healthy food if we do not improve digestion? Where do you think digestion starts? Inside the mouth? In the stomach?
Close your eyes for a moment. Take a deep breath and imagine a bright yellow lemon in front of you on the cutting board. You take a knife. You slice half a lemon. You pick up half a lemon. Then you squeeze the juice into a glass. You pick up the glass and you take a sip. Now open your eyes. Most people reported that they started salivating or boiling their mouths just thinking about lemon juice. So now, where do you think digestion started?
We need to turn on the normal physiology of our digestion to increase our chances of absorbing these nutrients, which are rich in healthy fats, proteins, and fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Just thinking about this delicious food stimulates the production of saliva and stomach acid.
During the first bite of our mouth, the enzymes in saliva are ready to start breaking down healthy fats from salmon and carbohydrates from salads. Careful chewing of each bite increases our chances of absorbing these nutrients later on. After swallowing, we reach the stomach, which secretes - stomach acid. And unfortunately, stomach acid doesn’t get the proper credit for all the function seats that are amazing to us. In addition to protecting our food from potential bacterial or viral invaders, it is necessary for the protein in our food to break down and unlock the minerals it needs to be absorbed later. We rely on good digestible protein from salmon sources to balance our blood sugars and make neurotransmitters, and hormones that improve and energize our mood. We need access to the rich sources of minerals found in those salad vegetables - minerals like iron to help prevent anemia, strengthen stress, help us with calcium to strengthen bones. And incidentally, salmon is a rich source of vitamin B12, which is uniquely dependent on stomach acid for subsequent absorption in the small intestine. Vitamin B12 is an important nutrient. It supports our neurological functions, protecting both memory and mood. After that, the partially digested food moves from the stomach to the small intestine, where more than 95% of the nutrients will be absorbed. For this to happen, however, the pancreas and gallbladder must work their digestion magic. The pancreas secretes versatile enzymes to further reduce protein, carbohydrates, and fats. And the gallbladder secretes bile. Much like stomach acid, bile is simply unprepared. It helps to pull healthy fats from our diet, salmon, and that salad dressing to help bile absorb. More than 60% of our brain is made up of fat. We need dietary fat to maintain our blood sugar balance and to take in fat-soluble vitamins like Vitamin A and K, which are rich in those salad vegetables. These vitamins strengthen our immune system and protect our bones. In the large intestine, our fiber-rich salad will serve our friendly intestinal bacteria as extra food, providing us with huge amounts of benefits such as increased metabolism, unbalanced hormones, and vitamin B for strong bone sand biotin for healthy hair and nails. Dietary fiber is not just for preventing constipation.
How we take in oxygen from the atmosphere? And distribute it around the body, but our cells need more than just oxygen. We need nutrients to sustain our bodily functions, which means we need to eat food. And that food needs to get broken down into tiny components that cells can use for energy production.
So how does this work?
The digestive system can be split up into two parts. The alimentary canal, also known as the gastrointestinal tract, or GI tract, is essentially one long continuous tube that starts at your mouth, where food goes in and winds all the way down the body to end at the anus, where some of the food comes back out. Along the way, much of the food is broken down into molecular fragments that can be absorbed through the lining of this tract and into the blood that surrounds. The rest of the digestive system is made up of accessory digestive organs like the teeth, tongue, gallbladder, salivary glands, liver, and pancreas, which are not part of the GI tract but have a considerable role in digestion. All of these elements work together to produce a sequence of six actions.
First, ingestion. This is the basic act of eating, meaning putting food into your mouth. Next is Propulsion. This begins when you swallow the food and continues with involuntary peristalsis, which is part of the autonomic nervous system.
These actions push food along the GI tract, down the pharynx, and esophagus, and down into the stomach, eventually continuing through the intestines and out the anus. This happens with the help of an action called segmentation, or successive local constrictions in the GI tract. The third is a mechanical breakdown, which begins by using teeth and saliva, and continues with the further breakdown by digestive juices in the stomach, a very acidic environment due to the presence of gastric acid, which contains hydrochloric acid. Next is the part that is more formally referred to as digestion.
This is when enzymes go and perform highly directed chemical reactions to break down all the polymers in the food. They break proteins down into individual amino acids, polysaccharides into individual monosaccharides, and so forth, which is categorically different than the earlier mechanical methods of breakdown.
Once everything is broken down as much as it can be, absorption will occur, where all of these nutrients pass through the lining of the small and large intestines into blood and lymph on the other side. Finally, anything that is not absorbed by the body will be dealt with during defecation, where it is expunged from the body in the form of feces. All of this is aided by specific chemical stimuli that activate certain reflexes, some of which are mediated by the central nervous system. The peritoneum is the membrane of the abdominopelvic cavity, and it is divided into the visceral peritoneum, covering the surfaces of these organs, and the parietal peritoneum, lining the body wall, with the peritoneal cavity in between, containing a serous fluid that lubricates the organs for ease of mobility. Blood is supplied to these organs via the splanchnic circulation. Now the GI tract as a whole, the basic structure that surrounds the lumen of the tract. The innermost layer is the mucosa or mucous membrane. This secretes digestive enzymes and hormones into the tract and also absorbs digested food into the blood. It is made of a single columnar epithelium, followed by a lamina propria made of loose areolar connective tissue, and then the muscularis mucosae, made of smooth muscle. Beyond this is the submucosa, which is made of areolar connective tissue, and full of blood vessels, lymphatic vessels, lymphoid follicles, and nerve fibers, and we can see these entering through a mesentery. Digested food just has to get to this layer in order for nutrients to spread all over the body. Surrounding this layer is the muscularis extern which is the muscular layer that performs segmentation and peristalsis, which help the food along the tract as we discussed earlier. It is made of an inner circular layer and an outer longitudinal layer. And lastly, we continue to find the serosa. This connective tissue covered with a single layer of squamous epithelial cells that form a mesothelium. We should also note the intrinsic nerve plexuses, which are the submucosal nerve plexus in the submucosa and the myenteric nerve plexus in the muscularis externa. These allow for communication all along the track and regulate digestive system activity. Now that we have the basics down regarding the GI tract, let’s look at the accessory organs. We already talked a bit about the mouth, or the oral cavity, when discussing the sense of taste, so here we will just highlight the features relevant to digestion. The walls of the mouth are lined with a thick stratified squamous epithelium, and the oral mucosa produces antimicrobial peptides called defensins since this region will need a lot of protection from the elements. We can also see the hard and soft palate, the uvula, and the palatine tonsils. The tongue is made of skeletal muscle fibers and is secured to the floor of the mouth by the lingual frenulum. Salivary glands produce saliva which cleans the mouth, moistens and dissolves food, and contains enzymes that begin breaking down certain foods. Teeth also help this process during mastication or chewing, which grinds food down into smaller pieces. The growth and development of teeth require sits own tutorial, so for now, let’s continue down to the pharynx. Food will move through the oropharynx and laryngopharynx, just like air does when we breathe, but with the larynx covered by the epiglottis, the food will then move into the esophagus. This is a muscular tube that joins the stomach at the cardiac orifice within the abdominal cavity. The esophagus wall has the basic structure that we described earlier, although, at this junction with the stomach, stratified squamous sepia thelium that is abrasion-resistant will change into the simple columnar epithelium, which his ideal for secretion. In the stomach, food enters through the cardia and is converted into a paste called chyme. We can also see the dome-shaped fundus, the body, and longitudinal folds called rugae. Zooming in, we can see gastric pits, which lead into tubular gastric glands, which is where the gastric juice is produced. This generates a very acidic environment, with a pH between 1.5 and 3.5, that is necessary for pepsin to do its work, the enzyme that digests proteins. The stomach needs a mucosal barrier to face these acidic conditions so that it is not broken down along with the food, and this is achieved by a lot of mucus sitting on top of tightly joined epithelial cells that are constantly regenerated by stem cells beneath. The stomach narrows to form the pyloric part, made of the pyloric antrum and the pyloric canal, which ends at the pyloric sphincter and then leads to the duodenum. Chyme travels through here into the small intestine. This is where digestion is completed and almost all of the absorption occurs. There are three sections, the first of which is the duodenum, followed by the jejunum and the ileum. The duodenum contains the hepatopancreatic ampulla, which is where the bile duct, delivering bile from the liver, and the main pancreatic duct, delivering pancreatic juice from the pancreas, join and merge with the small intestine. The other two sections are longer and hanging coils, joining the large intestine at the ileocecal valve. The small intestine is perfect for the absorption of nutrients. It is very long, to begin with, and the circular folds, fingerlike villi, and much tinier microvilli amplify the absorptive surface area even more so. Crypt epithelial cells secrete intestinal juice, which contains mucus and helps with the absorption. The mucosa of the small intestine is also where we will find Peyer’s patches, the lymphoid nodules we learned about when we looked at the lymphatic system. At this point, we should mention three more accessory organs that are associated with the small intestine. These are the liver, gallbladder, and pancreas. The liver performs many metabolic and regulatory tasks, but in a digestive context, its purpose is to produce bile, which enters the duodenum. This yellow-green substance breaks down fats for digestion. And the gallbladder is a tiny muscular sacad joining the liver that serves mainly to store bile. Looking more closely at the liver, we see four primary lobes separated by ligaments. Zooming in more closely still, we see smaller units called liver lobules. These are hexagonal structures made of liver cells called hepatocytes radiating outward from a central vein, and with a portal triad at each corner. This name refers to the fact that each triad consists of a bile duct, as well as an arteriole and a venule, carrying blood to and from the liver. Bile is secreted and flows through bile canaliculi, towards the bile ducts in the portal triads, eventually leaving the liver through the common hepatic duct towards the duodenum. Moving on to the pancreas, this is a large land attached to the duodenum via the main pancreatic duct, and it produces pancreatic juice, which contains a wide variety of enzymes that help break down food. We can see clusters of acinar cells surrounding ducts, this is where enzyme production takes place. And lastly, once the food has made it all the way through the small intestine, almost all of the water and nutrients have been absorbed, and what remains is more or less indigestible once it enters the large intestine, which frames the small intestine on three sides. This serves to continue absorbing more water from these food residues, and also compact them into the fecal matter, which is eliminated from the body through the anus. The large intestine is comprised of three bands of smooth muscle called the tenia coli, sacs called haustra, and tiny fat-filled pouches called epiploic appendages. It is also split into regional subdivisions, these being the cecum, appendix, colon, rectum, and anal canal. The cecum is the first section when entering the small intestine. Attached to this is the appendix, which contains lymphoid tissue. The colon is split up into the ascending colon, transverse colon, and descending colon, for obvious reasons relating to the direction of travel during those segments, as well as the sigmoid colon. This then feeds into the rectum and finally the anal canal. So that covers the basics regarding the digestive system and provides a rough picture of what happens to food from the moment it goes in your mouth, all the way through to the other side. There is plenty more to be said regarding the mechanism of digestion. Each type of biomolecule, whether protein, carbohydrate, fat, or otherwise, will require specific enzymes to be broken down, and these ways are worth examining in detail. But that will have to wait for a nutrition series in the near future.
In Conclusion
We need to feed our friendly, health-promoting bacteria with plenty and plenty of fiber. Assume that we are hydrated and fiber-rich, eliminated as a result of rhythmic contraction of digestion and this leads to the end of our digestive journey.
Or does it? If we are going to invest in healthy foods, don't we want to increase the chances that we will absorb those nutrients? Our entire digestive system is controlled by our nervous system. Our sense of stress during eating applies a strong force to these nerves. What happens to digestion when we feel calm? This is called the "rest and digest" condition. The normal physiology of digestion. Saliva, stomach acid, bile, and pancreatic enzymes are all released as a result of rhythmic contractions in the intestines. We eat, digest, absorb, we eliminate. And we have maximized the most nutritious opportunities. But what happens after digestion when we feel stress? This is called the "fight-and-flight" state.
In short, the entire digestive system is disrupted, which can negatively affect our absorbing nutrients and play a role in the common digestive tract. When we can eat when we feel stressed, we think less about hand-me-downs and stop chewing. We then pass poorly chewed food through a tube into the stomach that cannot be perfected with acid to break down proteins or unlock minerals from food. And it can give birth to a full feeling of discomfort in our stomach. There is a protective gate at the entrance to our stomach that prevents the acid from going upwards, which prevents the symptoms of what we commonly refer to as heartburn.
And sadly, most of our favorite foods and drinks, such as coffee, chocolate, and alcohol can contribute to an ineffective gate. Being overweight can put extra pressure on the gate. And a higher "fight-and-flight" mentality can exacerbate the symptoms of heartburn. So there are serious diseases where the use of acid-blocking drugs is required, indiscriminate use of these drugs over a long period of time can be nutritious risky and can increase the chances of calcium or vitamin B12 deficiency as well as weak protein breakdown.
Stress in the small intestine interferes with the digestive function of the pancreas and gallbladder. Opportunistic bacteria can then take advantage of poorly digested food and decompose and ferment it for energy, producing gas as a by-product and this can be a common but common complaint of bloating after a meal. If the gallbladder is blocked, it can lead to significant digestive problems, including loose equipment, and we have reduced our chances of absorbing those beneficial fat-soluble vitamins. Stress interferes with the normal contraction of the large intestine and you combine it with dehydration and a low-fiber diet and we end up with symptoms of constipation. So it became quite clear to move on to the support staff. It becomes quite clear that it will serve us well to stimulate our “rest and digest” nervous system before eating. There are simple and effective ways to do this.
First, take a few deep breaths before eating. It’s a powerful way to get into a “rest and digest” state. Physically the practice of slow, deep abdominal breathing involves the primary nerves that affect digestion. Deep breathing cannot be thought of as a somewhat weak, extra simplified recommendation. It is based on human anatomy and physiology. By taking deep breaths we can really improve our digestion. Your chewing, chewing not only makes it clear to mechanically digest food until it removes and swallows your flesh, and it not only allows the saliva to lubricate the food to be easily swallowed, but it also diverts all our senses to the food. Prolongs the giving time.
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