Gastrointestinal Function Essay

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Identify and describe the six major processes involved in gastrointestinal activity.
The six major processes involved in gastrointestinal activity include: ingestion (substance enter the oral cavity of the digestive track), mechanical processing (mastication consist of chewing/breaking down the substance and peristalsis consisting of involuntary contraction that assist the movement of food through the esophagus and intestinal tracts), digestion (chemical break down of substance into smaller fragments appropriate in absorption via the digestive epithelium), secretion (releasing of acids, buffers, water, enzymes, and salts from the glandular organs and epithelium of the digestive tract), absorption (moving water, vitamins, electrolytes, and organic …show more content…

Ghrelin is created by the stomach and is known, as a peptide released endocrine cells commonly found with in the stomach’s lining. Ghrelin is responsible in sending a message to the brain activating the hunger meanwhile deactivating the satiety cell. It counteracts leptin to increase metabolic efficiency to stimulate a person’s appetite. When your stomach begins to growl it is producing ghrelin. However, the other hormone coming from fat cells are responsible in creating leptin, which acts as a regulator, however, does quite the opposite of ghrelin hormone it turns on the satiety cell and turns off the hunger cell. In obesity fat cells are increasingly high resulting in high leptin levels. However, a combination of obesity and a high insulin levels may cause the stomach cells that produce ghrelin to turn off lowering the levels of ghrelin. Over a period of time with a high level of leptin can lead to the satiety cell becoming insensitive to leptin decreasing ghrelin levels resulting in hunger cells becoming hypersensitive to ghrelin. Although, the leptin levels are high and the ghrelin are low the hunger cells are on meanwhile the satiety cells are off (NCBI,

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