The organs in the digestive system
By Joel
- Mouth
When you chew your food its being mashed by your teeth and by the saliva. The enzymes in the saliva break down simple starches and fats. These are also responsible for protecting your teeth in bacterial decay. Then the food undergo's peristalsis a set of powerful muscles that push the food down your Esophagus.
- Esophagus
Your Esophagus is approximately 8 inches long and connects your mouth to your stomach.
-Stomach
Your Stomach produces hydrochloric acid that helps break down food. Have you ever wondered how your stomach keeps from eating itself? Well the inside of your stomach wall is coated with epithelial cells that produce a bicarbonate solution and the product of that is water. This continuous function protects your stomach from eating itself and the rest of the organs around it. The stomach is responsible for breaking down food to provide energy for the rest of the body. The average adult needs about 2000-2400 calories a day.
- Small Intestine
The small intestine is about 23 feet long and helps digest and most of the digestion happens here because the small intestine breaks down starches fats and proteins. Food stays in your small intestine for about 3-10 hours. The enzymes found in the small intestine are trypsin, lipase, and amylase. Trypsin is responsible for breaking down protein, amylase breaks down starches and lipase breaks down fats.
- Large Intestine
The large intestine is responsible for absorbing water from the undigested food, the large intestine is about 5 feet long which is funny because its called the large intestine, yet the small intestine is longer in length.
- Appendix
Currently there is no purpose for the appendix, but most people have it removed as it causes no observable health problems or because they get appendicitis which means swelling of the appendix due to cancer or a foreign body.
- Liver
The liver produces bile that aids in digestion of food with the small intestine. The liver is weighs about 3 pounds and is found right next to the stomach.
- Pancreas
The pancreas also is like the liver, it produces enzymes that help the small intestine digest food.
Three interesting facts
The digestive system is home to more cancers found then anywhere else in the body.
The liver is the only known organ to regenerate itself.
The sound made when your hungry is due to borborygmi,contracting muscles to make sure there's no food left in the stomach and since there's no food, there's nothing to absorb the sound thus causing a signal to be sent to your brain telling you its hungry.
Three disorders with the digestive system
Heartburn is caused when the acid from your stomach burns your esophagus.
Crohn's disease is a chronic inflammatory of the small intestines meaning the immune system attacks the healthy cells in your GI tract.
Abdominal Adhesion's are when your organs stick together when moving, all of your organs are slippery so that they don't stick together while moving.