The Digestive System : Homo Sapiens

Digestion starts in mouth and it is going through several steps. Teeth which are a Mechanical digestion start tearing and crushing the food down into small pieces so that the food will smoothly run down our throat. The salivary glands are located underneath the back of our tongues and that’s what is creating our saliva. The saliva is the Chemical Digestion is helping soften the food in the mouth so it is easy to swallow. Also saliva is the first out of several chemicals that is breaking the food into smaller bits. The tongue is the muscle that works with the food and saliva to form something similar to balls that can be swallowed. Also tongue contains taste buds so that we know if the food is salt, sweet, sour or bitter. Esophangus is a simple transportation tube that is joining the throat with stomach. When swallowing we are closing a trap door in our throats called the epiglottis. By closing this trap we are preventing the food prom going to trachea and into our lungs. Also Food moves down the esophangus using muscles not gravity. Stomach is the first stop after the Esophangus. When the food gets into stomach the stomach uses chemicals to try to make the food smaller. These chemicals are called gastric juices and they include hydrochloric acid and enzymes. (Enzymes are

Salivary glands are responsible for excreting saliva which helps with chewing and swallowing. The saliva is the first step to digestion; enzymes in the saliva begin the process.

The process of digestion first begins in the mouth by in taking food (bolus). The teeth help with masticating (chewing and breaking food particles down) allowing for swallowing and increasing surface area for chemical digestion. Enzymes found in saliva also facilitates with the chemical break down of food primarily starches and fats. The food swallowed then enters into the esophagus (a tube connecting the mouth and stomach). Peristalsis helps the esophagus to push the food in the direction of the stomach. The stomach contents are highly acidic (doesn’t affect the stomach mucosa since cells secrete mucus allowing the stomach wall to be protected) with pH levels between 1.5-2.5 allowing microorganisms to be killed, breaking down of food, and activating digestive enzymes producing a thick substance known as chyme. However, breaking down of foods further occurs in the small intestine consisting of: bile created from the liver, enzymes formed from the small intestine, and the pancreas facilitate with further digestion as well as HCI denatures (unfolds proteins) allowing them to be available to attack by digestive enzymes (also responsible in breaking down the protein). The pyloric sphincter separates the stomach from the small intestine allowing the chime to drop into the small intestine. The small intestine is the primary site for

As you can see, it is a tubelike structure made of muscle and lined with mucous membrane. The pharynx functions as part of the respiratory and digestive system because it is located behind the nasal cavities and the mouth. It is the structure that we refer to as the throat. It is about twelve and a half centimeters long and consists of three parts; the nasopharynx, oropharynx and the laryngopharynx. (Anatomy.tv, n.d.) The esophagus branches off of the pharynx which carries food to the stomach. Swallowing takes place in the pharynx partly as a reflex and partly under voluntary control. The tongue and soft palate pushes food into the pharynx, which closes off the trachea. The food then enters the esophagus. The esophagus is a muscular tube extending from the pharynx to the stomach. . (Mohan, 2010). It is about 25 centimeters long. The production of mucus by glands in the mucosal lining as you can see lubricates the tube to permit easier passage of food moving toward the stomach. (Thibodeau & Patton, 2008). Food is pushed through the esophagus and into the stomach by a series of contractions called peristalsis. The lower esophageal sphincter is just before the opening to the stomach. It opens to let food pass into the stomach and closes to keep it there. (Mohan, 2010).

Unlike human saliva, this mucus does not contain digestive enzymes, and only purpose is to aid the process of swallowing. The food then progresses into the pharynx, where the gill clefts are located. The pharynx acts as a passageway between the mouth and the oesophagus. Constructed of two layers of non-striated muscle, the oesophagus carries the food through to the gizzard, making use of mucus cells which assist in this process. Digestion begins in the gizzard, as it is a muscular modification of the first section of the stomach. The gizzard grinds coarse foods into smaller pieces, and secretes digestive enzymes into the

It is the organ of taste. The tongue has different taste buds, these are also called the gustatory receptors. The tongue also has an extrinsic and intrinsic muscles. The intrinsic muscles are located in the connective tissues inside the tongue. The intrinsic muscles change the shape and size of the tongue, this motion is done to assist with speech and swallowing. The extrinsic muscle is outside the tongue, the muscle allows the tongue to move from side to side, in and out also to move food that is being chewed in the mouth and transforms it in to bolus. The bolus is then moved with the tongue to the back of the soft palate to the pharynx in order to fit in to the oesophagus. For all of the above to happen salivation plays a huge role in assisting all the tongue muscles to move appropriately as it acts similar to a lubricant. (Tortora et al., 2002).

Mouth:-It contains the teeth, gums, soft palate, hard palate, the tongue and the lip. The soft and hard palate`s functions of prevent the large pieces to enter the body and mainly separate from trachea and esophagus. The tongue is where the saliva is mixed with enzymes and watery content to moist the food and allow the movement during mastication. The teeth breaks down food.

This breaks down the food into smaller particles, which is then mixed by the tongue along with saliva. Saliva is secreted by the salivary glands into the mouth, and this saliva contains enzymes to help break down the food. Complex carbohydrates, such as starch or glycogen, will be broken down

The food then travels through the pharynx, throat, which is a funnel-shape tube connected to the back of the mouth. It passes the food from the mouth to the esophagus. The pharynx has 2 different functions and is also apart of the respiratory system. It has a large piece of cartilage, epiglottis. When swallowing, the epiglottis folds down over the larynx. If there were no epiglottis, the food would travel through the larynx, the windpipe.

We start with the mouth, in the feature, I am chewing on a bit of bread from a sandwich, the sandwich softens up two distinct ways, mechanical and concoction absorption. Mechanically, teeth are utilized to bite sustenance into little pieces and blend it with salivation with the tongue's assistance. The tongue then sends this pounded up sandwich down the throat to the stomach. Synthetically, Salivary organs in the mouth produce spit, containing the protein amylase to separate starch, is blended with sustenance, making it gentler and smoother prepared for its adventure down to the stomach.

Digestion starts in the mouth. Chewing mechanically breaks down the food with saliva. Saliva moistens the food and is an essential enzyme for the digestion of starch. Saliva contains ptyalin, which is capable of breaking down starch into simpler sugars such as maltose and dextrin that can be further broken down in the small intestine. About 10-15 seconds after chewing has begun, the food bolus passes through the pharynx and in the oesophagus. When you swallow, the epiglottis closes to prevent the food from entering the respiratory system. The soft palate closes to prevent food from entering the nasal cavity.

The digestive system has many functions that allow people to live out their daily lives including the production of energy through nutrients in a functioning digestive system. The first function of the digestive system is the ingestion process. Ingestion is the intake of food performed by the mouth. Then, the mouth and stomach are responsible for storing the food until digestion. After ingestion, the digestive system secretes fluids, in order to soften the food and protect and lubricate internal organs, through a means called secretion. The food is then sent through a procedure of mixing and movement. Mixing and movement move the food to the intestines for digestion. Digestion is the most known function of the digestive system. Food is turned into chemicals and broken down into building blocks. When the digestive system has its building blocks, absorption takes place in the small intestines. The small intestine contains microscopic blood and lymphatic cells which carry the chemicals all over the human body. Once the chemicals are dispersed, the final process of the digestive system takes place. The overall progression is called excretion. Defecation is the process within excretion. Defecation takes indigestible substances from the body, so it

The mouth does both mechanical digestion and chemical digestion. Mechanically, your incisors cut food into small pieces, next your canines make the food pieces even smaller, than premolars and molars crush and grind the food, finally saliva moistens the food to a slippery mass. Saliva contains enzymes which speed the chemical reaction in the body, this part is the chemical digestion. Your mouth is the first in your digestive system.

The digestive system is very important in digesting food and breaking it down so it can be digested easily. The digestive system turns food into energy. Throughout the process there are nutrients which are absorbed. There are many things that contributed to the digestive system such as the mouth which produces saliva which helps to break down food and nutrients such as carbohydrates with the help of an enzyme called amylase. The major food groups which are called macro nutrients include carbohydrates, proteins and fats. All of these nutrients play an important role in the body. There are also many micro-nutrients which include vitamins and minerals which provide the body with health and well-being. The digestive system is made up of the mouth, which includes the teeth (the teeth are used to cut and grind food into smaller pieces, they contain blood vessels and nerves), tongue (the tongue is a muscle that has a rough surface including the taste buds), salvia glands (they produce salvia which moistens the food to make is easier to digest), the pharynx (this helps the food travel to the stomach, the pharynx also plays an important role in the respiratory system. It also contains 2 different flaps to separate the 2 functions), esophagus (this connects the pharynx to the stomach and transports chewed food to the stomach), stomach (this is a muscle that is

You use your mouth to chew your food, causing it to break down in pieces hence using the process of mechanical digestion, and you also use your mouth to form an enzyme known as amylase, or saliva which breaks down your food chemically, for instance when your saliva touches the bread from your sandwich it begins to form into sugars. Incase you did not know “enzymes are chemicals that are used to break down foods into other chemicals”. Saliva can also help you swallow the food by lubricating and “breaking down the complex carbohydrates into simple carbohydrates.”