DIGESTIVE SYSTEM

Anatomy and Physiology of digestive system

 Meaning of Digestive system

• Digestive system is a group of organs working together to convert food into

energy and nutrients (Mwirigi, 2015).

• Digestive system consists of mouth, pharynx, esophagus, stomach, small

intestine, liver, gallbladder, pancreas and large intestine.
 Mouth

• Digestion begins in the mouth.

• Mouth is also called the oral cavity.
• Teeth in the mouth cut and grind food into smaller pieces.
• The tongue pushes food for swallowing.
• The tongue contains taste buds detect the taste of food.
• Salivary glands in the mouth produce saliva which lubricates food, moisten food
and begin the digestion of carbohydrates.
 Pharynx

• The other name of pharynx is throat.

• It is a funnel-shaped tube connected the posterior end of the mouth.
• The pharynx passes masses of chewed food from the mouth to the
esophagus.
• It contains epiglottis that acts as a switch to route food to the esophagus
and air to the larynx.
 Esophagus

• It is a muscular tube connecting the pharynx to the stomach.

• It carries swallowed masses of chewed food to the stomach.
• At its inferior end is the cardiac sphincter which closes the end of esophagus
and hence trap food in the stomach.
 Stomach

• It is a muscular sac located on the left side of the abdominal cavity just
below the diaphragm.
• The stomach acts as a storage tank for food.
• The stomach contains hydrochloric acid and digestive enzymes that aids in
digestion.
 Small Intestine

• It is a long thin tube that is part of the lower alimentary canal.

• It is located just blow the stomach and occupies most of the space in the
abdominal cavity.
• Small intestine is coiled and has many ridges and folds on the inside.
• These folds helps to maximize the digestion of food and absorption of
nutrients.
• Most of digestion takes place in the small intestine.
 Liver

• It is roughly triangular accessory organ located to the right of the stomach

below the diaphragm and above the small intestine.
• The liver is the second largest organ in the body.
• It has many different functions in the body.
• The main digestive function of the liver is the production and secretion of bile.
• The liver secrets bile into the small intestines.
 Gallbladder

• It is a small, pear-shaped organ located just above the liver.

• The gallbladder is used to store and recycle excess bile from the small
intestine.
 Pancreas

• Pancreas is a large gland located just inferior and posterior to the stomach.
• One end of the pancreas is connected to the duodenum while the other end
is pointing to the left wall of the abdominal cavity.
• The pancreas produces pancreatic juice which contains digestive enzymes
that complete the chemical digestion of food in the small intestine.
 Large Intestine

• Large intestine is a long thick tube located just inferior to the stomach and
wraps around the superior and lateral borders of the small intestines.
• The work of the large intestine is to absorb water.
• Large intestines also contains many symbiotic bacteria that contribute in
breaking down of wastes to extract some small amounts of nutrients.
• Feces in the large intestine exit the body through the anal canal.
 Physiology of the Digestive System

• There are six physiological functions of the digestive system

1. Ingestion of food.
2. Secretion of fluids and digestive enzymes.
3. Mixing and movement of food and wastes through the body.
4. Digestion of food into small pieces.
5. Absorption of nutrients.
6. Excretion of wastes (Sherwood, 2015).
 Ingestion

• Ingestion is the intake of food through the mouth.

• All food enters the body through the mouth.
• The food is stored in the stomach waiting to be digested.
• This storage of food enables ingestion of more food than the body can
process at a time.
 Secretion

• The digestive system is responsible for production and release of fluids and enzymes.
• These fluids include saliva, mucus, hydrochloric acid and bile.
• Saliva moistens dry food contains salivary amylase enzyme that begins the digestion of carbohydrates.
• Mucus serves both as a lubricant and as a protective layer in the alimentary canal.
• Hydrochloric acid kills bacteria in the food.
• Enzymes breakdown large molecules of proteins, carbohydrates and lipids into smaller components for
digestion.
• Bile is used for emulsification of large molecules of lipids into tiny globules for easy digestion.
 Mixing and Movement of Food

• Digestive system uses 3 main processes to move and mix food.

• These are swallowing, peristalsis and segmentation.
• Swallowing is the process of pushing food out of the mouth into the esophagus via the pharynx.
• Swallowing is facilitated by smooth & skeletal muscles in the mouth, tongue and the pharynx.
• Peristalsis is a muscular wave through the alimentary canal that moves food a short distance down the
canal.
• Segmentation is the contraction of short segments of the small intestine .
• Segmentation increases the absorption of nutrients by mixing food and increasing its contact with the
walls of the intestine.
 Digestion

• Digestion is the breakdown of large pieces of food into its component chemicals.
• There are two modes of digestion: mechanical and chemical digestion.
• Mechanical digestion is the breakdown of large pieces of food into smaller pieces.
• Mechanical digestion begins with the chewing of food by the teeth.
• It proceeds to mixing of food by the stomach and the intestines.
• Bile produced by the liver also mechanically break fat into smaller globules.
 Digestion…Continued

• Chemical digestion begins in the mouth with the digestion of carbohydrates by

salivary amylase.
• Enzymes and acid in the stomach continue the process of chemical digestion.
• Most of chemical digestion occurs in the small intestines whereby the pancreatic
juice produced by the pancreas digests the lipids, carbohydrates, proteins and
nucleic acids.
• Chemical digestion reduces food to its chemical building blocks such as fatty acids,
monosaccharides and nucleotides.
 Absorption

• Absorption is the intake of digested food into the body.

• It begins in the stomach with simple water and alcohol molecules being
directly absorbed into the bloodstream.
• Most of absorption takes place in the small intestine.
• Large intestine absorbs water, vitamin B and K (Lefebvre, Venema, Gombau,
Valerio Jr, Raju, Bondy and Mehta, (2015).
 Excretion

• Excretion is the removal of waste and indigestible food substances from the
body, a process known as defecation.
 references

• Mwirigi, L. K. (2015). The Cytokine Profile and Prostate Specific Antigen Levels in
Prostate Cancer Patients at Kenyatta National Hospital (Doctoral dissertation,
Kenyatta University).
• Sherwood, L. (2015). Human physiology: from cells to systems. Cengage learning.
• Lefebvre, D. E., Venema, K., Gombau, L., Valerio Jr, L. G., Raju, J., Bondy, G. S., ...
& Mehta, R. (2015). Utility of models of the gastrointestinal tract for assessment
of the digestion and absorption of engineered nanomaterials released from food
matrices. Nanotoxicology, 9(4), 523-542.