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APY 121: Anatomy and Physiology II
DIGESTIVE SYSTEM
Learning Objectives
• Describe the functions of the digestive system
• Name and state the functions of different parts of the digestive system
• List and give the functions of various types of cells in the stomach.
• Describe the pathway of a protein meal, carbohydrate meal and lipid meal from the
mouth to the large intestine and state the enzymes involved in the process.
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INTRODUCTION
• The digestive system is essentially a disassembly line and its primary purpose is to break nutrients
down into forms that can be used by the body, and to absorb them so they can be distributed to the
tissues.
• Most of what we eat cannot be used in the form found in the food.
• Nutrients must be broken down into smaller components, such as amino acids and monosaccharides,
that are universal to all species.
• Consider what happens if you eat a piece of cow meat, for example.
• The myosin of cow meat differs very little from that of human muscles, but the two are not identical,
and even if they were, cow meat myosin could not be absorbed, transported in the blood, and
incorporated into our muscles.
• Like any other dietary protein, it must be broken down into amino acids before it can be used. Since
cow meat and human proteins are made of the same 20 amino acids, those of cow meat proteins
might indeed become part of our myosin but could equally well wind up in our insulin, fibrinogen,
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collagen, or any other protein.
FUNCTIONS OF THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM
• The digestive system is the organ system that processes food, extracts nutrients from
it, and eliminates the residue.
• It does this in five stages:
• 2. digestion, the mechanical and chemical breakdown of food into a form usable by
the body;
• 5.02/06/2024
defecation, the elimination of feces. 5
Anatomy of the Digestive System
• The digestive system has two anatomical subdivisions, the digestive tract and the
accessory organs.
• The digestive tract is a muscular tube extending from mouth to anus, measuring about 9 m
long in a death body. It is also known as the alimentary canal or gut.
• It includes the mouth, pharynx, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, and large intestine.
• The gastrointestinal (GI) tract = the stomach and intestines.
• The accessory organs are the teeth, tongue, salivary glands, liver, gallbladder, and
pancreas.
• Most of the digestive tract follows a basic structural plan, with a wall composed of the
following tissue layers, in order from the inner to the outer surface:
• Mucosa,
• submucosa
• Muscularis externa and
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• serosa (serous membrane).
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Nerve supply to the digestive tract
• Its functions include ingestion, taste and other sensory responses to food, chewing,
chemical digestion, swallowing, speech and respiration.
• Its anterior opening between lips is the oral fissure and its posterior opening into the
throat is the fauces.
• Lined with stratified squamous epithelium.
• The cheeks and lips retain food and push it between the teeth for mastication, and are
essentially
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for articulate speech and for sucking and blowing 9
The Tongue
• A muscular and bulky organ,
• Agile and sensitive organ with several functions:
- Food intake
- Has sensory receptors for taste, texture and temperature that are
important in the acceptance or rejection of food
- Compresses and breaks up food
-Mixes food between teeth for mastication
- Secretes mucus and enzymes
- Compresses the chewed food into a bolus, that is easier to swallow
- Initiates swallowing
• They include;
• filiform papillae: rough surface
• foliate papillae: posterolateral, house taste buds
• Fungiform: house taste buds
• vallate (circumvallate) papillae: house taste buds
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The Palate
• It separates the oral cavity and makes it
possible to breathe while chewing food.
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The Teeth
• Collectively called dentition.
• They serve to masticate food, breaking it into smaller pieces. This is not
just to make the food easier to swallow, but to expose more surface area to
the action of digestive enzymes and thus speeds up chemical digestion.
• Incisors are chisel-like cutting teeth used to bite off a piece of food.
• The canines are more pointed and act to puncture and shred it.
• The premolars and molars have relatively broad surfaces adapted for crushing and
grinding.
• Primary (decidious): 2I 1C 2M x 2 = 20
2I 1C 2M
• Permanent: 2I 1C 2PM 3M x 2 = 32
2I 1C 2PM 3M
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The Salivary Glands
• There are two kinds of salivary glands, intrinsic and extrinsic.
• The first is exclusively respiratory; the last two are shared by the respiratory
and digestive tracts
• The oropharynx: It lies behind the oral cavity and extends from the uvula
to the level of the hyoid bone. Because both food and air pass through the
pharynx, a flap of connective tissue called the epiglottis closes over the
glottis (tracheal opening) when food is swallowed to prevent accidental
inhalation.
• (3) The body (corpus) makes up the greatest part of the stomach distal
to the cardiac orifice.
• (4) The pyloric region is a slightly narrower pouch at the distal end; it is
subdivided into a funnel-like antrum and a narrower pyloric canal.
• The latter terminates at the pylorus, a narrow passage into the
duodenum. The pylorus is surrounded by a thick ring of smooth muscle,
the pyloric (gastroduodenal) sphincter, which regulates the passage
of chyme into the duodenum.
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CELLS OF THE STOMACH
• Collectively, the glands have the following cell types:
• Mucous cells: They secrete mucus and predominate in the cardiac and pyloric glands. In gastric glands, they are
called mucous neck cells and are concentrated in the neck of the gland.
• Regenerative (stem) cells: They are found in the base of the pit and neck of the gland. They divide rapidly and form
a continual supply of new cells. Newly generated cells migrate upward into the glands to replace cells that die and fall off
into the lumen of the stomach.
• Parietal cells: They are found mostly in the upper half of the gland, secrete hydrochloric acid and intrinsic factor.
They are found mostly in the gastric glands, but a few occur in the pyloric glands.
• Chief cells: They are the most numerous, secrete chymosin (formerly called rennin) and lipase in infancy and
pepsinogen throughout life. They dominate the lower half of the gastric glands but are absent from cardiac and pyloric
glands.
• Enteroendocrine cells: They are concentrated especially in the lower end of a gland; secrete hormones and paracrine
messengers that regulate digestion. They are found in all regions of the stomach, but are most numerous in the gastric
and pyloric glands. These are at least 8 different kinds in the stomach, each of which produces a different chemical
messenger. G cells for example, secrete a hormone gastrin which stimulates the exocrine cells of the gastric glands to
secrete acid and enzymes.
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• In general, the cardiac and pyloric glands secrete mainly mucus; acid and enzymes secretions occur predominantly in the
MECHANISM OF PREVENTION OF STOMACH SELF-DIGESTION
• With the numbers of chemicals secreted in the stomach, it could easily be digested itself;
but it is protected from self digestion in 3 ways:
• Mucous coat: A tick, highly alkaline mucus resists the action of acid and enzymes.
• Tight junctions: The epithelial cells are joined by tight junctions which prevent gastric
juice from seeping between them digesting the connective tissue of the lamina propria or
beyond.
• The 02/06/2024
breakdown of these protective mechanisms can result in inflammation and peptic
20
ulcer.
SMALL INTESTINE
• The stomach sends about 3 ml of chyme at a time into the small intestine.
• In the small intestine the chemical digestion of food is completed and absorption of
most nutrients takes place. To perform these roles efficiently, the small intestine must
have a large surface area exposed to the chyme. This surface area is imparted to it by
extensive folding of the mucosa, and by the great length of the small intestine.
• The walls of the small intestine are composed of the four layers of tissue with some
modifications of the peritoneum (mesenteries) and the mucosa (villi, microvilli
etc…).
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Functions of the small intestine
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Functions of the large intestine
• Absorption: In the large intestine, absorption of water by osmosis continues until the familiar
semisolid consistency of faeces is achieved.
• Microbial activity: The large intestine is heavily colonized by certains types of bacteria which
synthesize vitamin K and folic acid. They include Escherichia coli, Streptococcus faecalis.
• Mass movement: The large intestine does not exhibit peristaltic movement as in other parts of
the tract. Only at fairly long intervals (about twice an hour) does a wave of strong peristalsis
sweep along the transverse colon forcing its contents into the descending and sigmoid colons. This
is known as mass movement.
• Defaecation: Usually the rectum is empty, but when a mass movement forces the contents of the
sigmoid colon into the rectum the nerve in its walls are stimulated by stretch. In infants,
defaecation occurs by reflex (involuntary) action.
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Accessory Organs
• The liver
• It is a reddish brown gland located immediately inferior to the
diaphragm
• Has four lobes. The two most obvious are the large right lobe
and the smaller left lobe. The other two, the caudate and
quadrate lobes, are areas on the posterior surface.
- Portal fissure: point of entry for the hepatic portal vein and
hepatic arteries and a point of exit of the bile duct.
- Lobules: Tiny functional units of the liver
- Hepatocytes: Cubical-shaped cells of the liver.
- Kupffer
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cells: Hepatic macrophages. 25
Functions of the liver
• Carbohydrate metabolism: Maintaining plamsa glucose levels i.e. produce and store
glucose.
• Protein metabolism: Deamination of a.a (removal of the nitrogenous portion from the
a.as), transamination (removal of the nitrogenous portion of the a.as and attachment of a
carbohydrate molecule), synthesis of plasma proteins and most of the blood clotting
factors.
- The pancreatic juice consists of water, mineral salts, enzymes, inactive enzyme
precursors (trypsinogen and chymotrypsinogen).
- Pancreatic juice has Ph=8, pancreatic enzymes, amylase and lipase act more
effectively at this Ph.
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Gall bladder
• Functions
- Bile reservoir
- Concentrates bile
- Release bile when needed.
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Carbohydrates
• The digestion of carbohydrates begins in the mouth.
• The salivary enzyme amylase begins the breakdown of food starches into maltose, a
disaccharide.
• As the bolus of food travels through the esophagus to the stomach, no significant digestion of
carbohydrates takes place. The esophagus produces no digestive enzymes but does produce
mucous for lubrication.
• The acidic environment in the stomach stops the action of the amylase enzyme.
• Recall that the chyme from the stomach enters the duodenum and mixes with the digestive
secretion from the pancreas, liver, and gallbladder.
• Pancreatic juices also contain amylase, which continues the breakdown of starch and glycogen
into maltose, a disaccharide.
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Carbohydrates Digestion
• The monosaccharides (glucose) thus produced are absorbed and then can be
used in metabolic pathways to harness energy. The monosaccharides are
transported across the intestinal epithelium into the bloodstream to be
transported to the different cells in the body.
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Digestion of carbohydrates is performed by several enzymes.
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Protein Digestion
• A large part of protein digestion takes place in the stomach.
• The enzyme pepsin plays an important role in the digestion of proteins by breaking down the intact
protein to peptides, which are short chains of four to nine amino acids.
• In the duodenum, other enzymes— trypsin, elastase, and chymotrypsin—act on the peptides
reducing them to smaller peptides.
• Trypsin, elastase, carboxypeptidase, and chymotrypsin are produced by the pancreas and released
into the duodenum where they act on the chyme.
• Further breakdown of peptides to single amino acids is aided by enzymes called peptidases (those
that break down peptides).
Stomach chief
Pepsin Stomach Proteins Peptides
cells
•Trypsin
•Elastase Pancreas Small intestine Proteins Peptides
Chymotrypsin
•Aminopeptidase Lining of
Small intestine Peptides Amino acids
•Dipeptidase intestine
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Lipids Digestion
• Lipid digestion begins in the stomach with the aid of lingual lipase and gastric
lipase.
• However, the bulk of lipid digestion occurs in the small intestine due to pancreatic
lipase.
• When chyme enters the duodenum, the hormonal responses trigger the release of bile,
which is produced in the liver and stored in the gallbladder.
• Emulsification is a process in which large lipid globules are broken down into several
small lipid globules. These small globules are more widely distributed in the chyme
rather than forming large aggregates. Lipids are hydrophobic substances: in the
presence of water, they will aggregate to form globules to minimize exposure to water.
• By 02/06/2024
forming an emulsion, bile salts increase the available surface area of the lipids many34