The Digestive System And The Digestive System In The Human Body

The human body uses various kinds of food for energy, growth, repair and healing processes. Thus, humans gain the necessary elements for these functions from food they consume. Food is made up of large things also known as complex molecules is broken down to form simple molecules by the digestive system and is readily absorbed into the bloodstream. Digestion is known as the body’s process of obtaining important nutrients from food. The digestive system consists of the gastrointestinal tract plus the accessory organs of digestion such as tongues, salivary glands, pancreas, liver and gallbladder which perform the process by which food is eaten and broken down into different components. This breakdown makes it possible for digested material to

Digestion generally involves two parts which is the mechanical part and the chemical part. Large pieces of food is broken down into smaller pieces physically by our teeth in the mechanical part. As for the chemical part, the enzymes or the digestive chemicals break apart individual molecules of food to produce molecules that can be taken up and distributed throughout the body and secreted by glands in the body (Boundless, n. d.). Digestion in humans takes place in a long tube like canal called the alimentary canal, or the digestive tract. The term alimentary canal that describes the passageway used by food to travel through the body has its own convincing reason for why it is called so. It literally guides the food as it travels through the human body, just like ships guided through the waterways by constructed canals to their destinations. This alimentary canal has mouth at one end, through which the food is taken in, and anus at the other end, through which the faeces is taken out of the body (“Human digestive system,”

Mucus, a slimy substance helps in lubricating the intestinal contents and to transport it through the bowel. The ileocecal valve that separates small and large intestines has chyme passing through it, approximately 1.5 to 2 litres (0.4 to 0.5 gallons) each day (Rogers, 2010).The large intestine can be divided into few parts including the cecum, ascending colon, transverse colon, descending colon and sigmoid colon. As mentioned earlier, the large intestine works to absorb water, maintain the osmolality, and for faecal material storage until the process of defecation