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The fantastic voyage of the digestive system Essay

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Once again we have been miniaturized in the submarine to continue the fantastic voyage of the digestive system. We will be touring a 55-year-old male. The host will be having a hamburger, French fries, and a root beer. We will be tracing lunch through the digestion process. Digestion is the process of turning the food that is ate into energy needed to survive and involves creating waste to be eliminated. (Mohan, 2010). The digestive tract is a long twisting tube that starts at the mouth and ends at the anus, called the alimentary canal. The wall of this tube is fashioned of four layers of tissue. The layers are listed from the inside coat to the outside coat: mucosa or mucus membrane, submucosa, muscularis, and serosa. The hollow space …show more content…

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).
The stomach is a sac-like organ with strong muscular walls that lies in the upper abdominal cavity just under the diaphragm. The stomach looks small after it is emptied, but it expands

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