Mrs. Davidson
Period 2
Human Physiology
Digestive System
Lunch Time With Lily!
Written By: Talia Rios
Lily is getting hungry for lunch! What should she eat?
Lily is so excited to dive into this delicious, whole-grain sandwich. It has all her favorites: cheese, spinach, and pepperoni!
Lily chooses a sandwich made out of whole-grain bread to increase her fiber intake, which prevents constipation and is beneficial to healthy gut bacteria! It's best to eat healthy, vitamin packed foods that nourish your body but still taste delicious! It's also important to eat on schedule and exercise regularly to maintain a healthy digestive system!
The first bite of food enters Lily's mouth. The salivary glands produce salivary amylase that already starts breaking down the starches of the sandwich. Her teeth chew on the bite, forming a ball of food, or bolus, that is pushed by her tongue when she swallows.
The bolus then travels down Lily's esophagus, the tube that connects her mouth to her stomach. When it finally reaches her stomach, the stomach digests the food mechanically and chemically. The stomach muscles contract and break up the food to expose it to all the gastric juices. Hydrochloric Acid chemically breaks down the food so it can be absorbed.
So, that pepperoni and chese gets broken up by protease, the enzyme responsible for breaking down proteins in the deli meat, and lipase, the enzyme responsible for breaking down fats and oils in the pepperoni.
After the stomach turns Lily's sandwich into chyme, a creamy paste, it goes into the small intestine. The three parts of Lily's small intestine are the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum. To neutralize the stomach acid, the pancreas dumps bicarbonate into the duodenum. The liver makes the bile that the gallbladder releases into Lily's duodenum. As the sandwich moves through the small intestine, it becomes feces at the ileum.
The pancreas also produces nuclease, that breaks down the nucleic acids in the spinach from Lily's sandwich!
Also, absorption occurs in Lily's small intestine. This is when the food gets broken down into smaller and smaller pieces so it can be absorbed into the bloodstream. Later, the food goes through the process of assimilation, where the nutrients from her delicious sandwich are distributed to the different cells and tissues that make up her body.
From that point, the sandwich is no longer a delicious sub, it is not a blob of, well...poop. After the ileum, the feces moves onto the large intestine which consists of the colon, rectum, and anus. The large intestine absorbs water and contracts to move the feces out. When the stool reaches the colon and it becomes full, it moves to the rectum and it finally exits the body through the anus.
If the stool is in the colon for too long, however, it can cause an unhealthy digestive system and cause problems like constipation. Constipation is when it is extremely difficult to pass a bowel movement. This is because one is not consuming enough fibers or not drinking enough water, both help soften the stool preventing it from becoming too hard to pass. So to keep your system healthy, be sure to consume a good amount of fiber, drink water, and exercise!
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Mrs. Davidson
Period 2
Human Physiology
Digestive System
Lunch Time With Lily!
Written By: Talia Rios
Lily is getting hungry for lunch! What should she eat?
Lily is so excited to dive into this delicious, whole-grain sandwich. It has all her favorites: cheese, spinach, and pepperoni!
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