Category: Your Digestive System
The large, hollow organs of the digestive system contain muscle that enables their walls to move. The movement of organ walls can propel food and liquid and also can mix the contents within each organ.
Typical movement of the esophagus, stomach, and intestine is called peristalsis. The action of peristalsis looks like an ocean wave moving through the muscle. The muscle of the organ produces a narrowing and then propels the narrowed portion slowly down the length of the organ. These waves of narrowing push the food and fluid in front of them through each hollow organ.
How Food is Digested
Digestion involves the mixing of food, its movement through the digestive tract, and chemical breakdown of the large molecules of food into smaller molecules.
Digestion begins in the mouth, when we chew and swallow, and is completed in the small intestine. The chemical process varies somewhat for different kinds of food.
The Digestive System and How it Works
The digestive system is made up of the digestive tract, which is a series of hollow organs joined in a long, twisting tube from the mouth to the anus. These organs break down and absorb food.
Organs that make up the digestive track are the mouth, the esophagus, the stomach, the small intestine, the large intestine (colon), the rectum, and the anus.
The glands that act first are in the mouth, the salivary glands. Saliva produced by these glands contains an enzyme that begins to digest the starch from food into smaller molecules.
The next set of digestive glands is in the stomach lining. They produce stomach acid and an enzyme that digests protein.
One of the unsolved puzzles of the digestive system is why the acid juice of the stomach does not dissolve the tissue of the stomach itself. In most people, the stomach mucosa is able to resist the juice, although food and other tissues of the body cannot.
The small intestine is an organ inside of your body that is part of the digestive tract, between the stomach and the large intestine. The small intestine is the organ where most digestion occurs. The stomach empties its contents slowly into the small intestine. The small intestine empties into the large intestine. The large intestine starts at the end of the small intestine. The word bowel can refer to the large and small intestines.
The small intestine measures about 22 feet long and about 1 and a half to 2 inches around, and includes the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum.
Bile, pronounced BY-ul, is fluid made by the liver and is stored in the gallbladder until you need it to digest fat.
When a person eats, the gallbladder pushes bile into tubes called bile ducts. The bile ducts carry the bile to your small intestine.
Bile helps with digestion by breaking down fats and fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K, and by getting rid of wastes in the body.
Bile ducts are also called hepatic ducts.
Pronounced – KOH-lun
Myths and Facts About Digestive Diseases
Researchers have only recently begun to understand the many, often complex, diseases that affect the digestive system. Accordingly, people are gradually replacing folklore, old wives’ tales, and rumors about the causes and treatments of digestive diseases with accurate, up to date information. But misunderstandings still exist, and, while some folklore is harmless, some can be dangerous if it keeps a person from correctly preventing or treating an illness. Listed below are some common misconceptions (fallacies), about digestive diseases, followed by the facts as professionals understand them today.
1. Bowel Regularity
Common Misconception – Bowel regularity means a bowel movement every day. This is false.
The truth is, the frequency of bowel movements among normal, healthy people varies from three a day to three a week, and perfectly healthy people may fall outside both ends of this range.
The esophagus is the organ that connects the mouth to the stomach. The esophagus is also called gullet or food pipe, and is also spelled oesophagus.
The esophagus seems to have only one important function in the body – to carry food, liquids, and saliva from the mouth to the stomach. The stomach then acts as a container to start digestion and pump food and liquids into the intestines in a controlled process. Food can then be properly digested over time, and nutrients can be absorbed by the intestines.
Upper endoscopy is also called EGD, which stands for esophagogastroduodenoscopy – pronounced eh-SAH-fuh-goh-GAS-troh-doo-AH-duh-NAH-skuh-pee.
Upper endoscopy enables the physician to look inside the esophagus, stomach, and duodenum – duodenum is the first part of the small intestine.