The Digestive System

• The breakdown of foodstuffs into diff-usable form

is called digestion. Or breaking of complex food
into simple absorb-able by the blood is called
digestion. Consists of-alimentary canal and
digestive glands.
• The Alimentary Canal-a muscular tube of about 9
meter long starts with the mouth and ends at the
anus. Along with this digestive glands are located
in lining of different parts of it. The two larger
digestive glands are liver and pancreas and three
salivary glands in oral cavity.
 The Digestive System

The Mouth :This is the part of ingestion. This
cavity is helpful for chewing and mixing of food
with saliva. Front part is formed by upper and
lower lips. Function of lips are-closing the
mouth,sucking and sipping liquids, speaking and
to perceive sensation of touch and heat.

A muscular tongue helps in-mixing of food with
saliva, tasting food, cleaning of food particles
from teeth after eating and speaking.
 The Digestive System

The teeth- dentition :Helpful for cutting and
breaking of food particles. Teeth is also helpful in
speaking and facial beauty.
An adult human normally has 32 teeth. They are :
a. Incisors-Incisor 4 in number in each jaw,
function- cutting & biting. sharp like a chisel.
b. Canines- two in number in each jaw, conical and
sharp pointed, helpful for holding and tearing.
 The Digestive System

c. Premolars –four on each jaw, for grinding

and crushing the food.
d. Molars- six on each jaw, they are principal
grinders and crushers of food, last molar is
known as wisdom tooth.
As they are of different shape so called heterodont. In
the case of lizards and birds they have homodont.
Milk teeth (temporary/deciduous)-20 in number, growth
starts 7-8 months and completed about 2 years. These
are completely replaced by the permanent teeth by
about 12 years of age.
 The Digestive System
Dental formula :
Up to 2 years : 2,1,0,2/2,1,0.2 =20 (milk teeth)
Up to 17-20 years : 2,1,2,2/2,1,2,2 =28(permanent
teeth)
Human adult : 2,1,2,3/2,1,2,3 =32(permanent teeth)
 The Digestive System

Structure of A Tooth

Each tooth have two parts-Crown (the part above the gum),
Root the part embedded in a cup-like socket of the jaw bone)
and Neck a slight constriction between the root and the
crown. VS of tooth shows :

Enamel : The hardest substance in the body to cover the
crown of the tooth.

Dentine :It forms the bulk of the tooth and harder than bone.
It has minute canals through which run the strands of
cytoplasm of the cells in pulp cavity.

Cement :Is another bone-like structure covering and fixing
the root in position.

Pulp :Center part of the tooth,made up of connective tissue. It
consists of blood capillaries, lymph vessels and nerve fibres.
 The Digestive System

The Salivary Glands :Three pairs of salivary
glands are :

Parotid glands : location in front of and beneath
each ear.

Submandibular glands :location close to the
inner side of the lower jaw on each side.

Sublingual glands :location below the tongue.

Saliva secretes through duct into the mouth.
While eating,the salivary flow is considerably
increased. About 1000 – 1500 ml of saliva is
produced every day.
 The Digestive System

Saliva : Slightly acidic (pH 6.8) fluid containing water (99%),
salts, mucus and an enzyme salivary amylase(ptyalin).

Functions :

1.Helpful for speaking and swallowing,

2.moistening and lubricating food for easily swallowing,

3.acts as solvent to dissolving food particles to stimulate taste
buds of the tongue,

4.for making bolus of food to swallow,

5.digests starch by amylase to maltose,

6.cleans the mouth and destroy germs to prevent tooth decay
and

7.to aids in water balance in the body.


Starch ------------------→Maltose (disaccharide)
 The Digestive System

Swallowing And Peristalsis :The tongue presses
upward and back against the roof (palate) of the mouth
and this forces the bolus into the throat or the pharynx.

The back part of the roof of the mouth cavity(soft palate)
closes the opening between the throat and the nasal
passage.

The larynx (voice box) which is located at the entrance
of the windpipe is pulled upward to bring it close to the
back of the tongue when a flap called epiglottis closes
its opening. It not allows food to go into windpipe.
 The Digestive System

Peristalsis is the wave of constrictions caused by
the circular muscles of the gut pushing the food
along. This occurs through all regions of the gut.
Mucus secreted by all gut region helpful to
lubricate the food.

Oesophagus : A tube which conduct food from
mouth to stomach. It passes through the
diaphragm close to the backbone. No digetive
glands in this tube.
 The Digestive System
Stomach : location-below the diaphragm, it is an
elastic bag, can hold 2 to 3 litres of food, highly
muscular, inner lining have gastric glands. The
opening of stomach into intestine is called pylorus
and it has sphincter muscles to control flow of
churned food. Cardiac sphincter present between
stomach and oesophagus to prevent back flow of
food to oesophagus.
Gastric juice : from inner lining of the stomach.
colourless contain water,some salts, hydrochloric
acid and an enzyme-pepsin. Function of acid to kill
all germs entered along with food and to activate
pepsinogen to change into pepsin and act on protein.
 The Digestive System
Pepsin digests protein into peptides.
(I) Pepsinogen (inactive) ------→ Pepsin (active)
 Protein -------------→ Peptides
(ii) Prorennin (inactive)--------→ Rennin (active)
 Milk Protein/casein----------→ Paracasein (insoluble)
The food stays in the stomach for about 3 hours and
changing into paste like called chyme. The pylorus valve
open to allow the chyme to intestine little by little.
 The Digestive System

The Small Intestine : It is of about 7 metres long and
about 2.5 cm wide. Three parts of it :

1. Duodenum :Short upper part,the common bile duct
opens into this part.

2.Jejunum : It is about 2 metres long tube.

jejunum=empty.

3.Ileum :About 4 metres long twisted tube.Inner lining of
it has finger-like projections called villi(villus).It is helpful
to increase the surface for absorption of digested food.
Wall of intestine has intestinal juice secreting glands.

The small intestine is helpful for digestion and
absorption of food. It receives two digestive juices : bile
and pancreatic juice
 The Digestive System

Bile Juice : Yellowish green watery fluid produced
by liver. The hepatic duct is joined by the cistic
duct to form the common bile duct. It has
pigments called biliverdin and bilirubin produce by
liver after the breakdown of the dead and worn-
out blood cells. It is alkaline in nature due to
sodium bicarbonate and helpful to neutralise
acidic food received from stomach.So now the
medium of food is alkaline for act pancreatic juice.

1. Fat--------→ Emulsified fat

2.Acidic chyme------→ alkaline chyme
 The Digestive System

Pancreatic Juice :Location-behind the
stomach.Secretion pancreatic juice, opens near
common duct. Contain three enzymes :
1.Amylopsin (pancreatic amylase)-converts
starch into maltose.
2.Trypsin : converts protein and polypeptides into
peptides and amino acids. Trypsinogen is an
inactive trypsin converted by an enzyme
enterokinase (enteropeptidase) into active trypsin.
 The Digestive System

3.Steapsin : acts on emulsified fat to split into

fatty acid and glycerol.

Trypsinogen (inactive)----- Trypsin (active)

Proteins & Peptides---------> smaller Peptides+
Amino acids
Leftover Starch-------------- Maltose
Emulsified fat--------------- Fatty acids + Glycerol
 The Digestive System

Intestinal Juice : Converts remaining peptides into

amino acid by erepsin (peptidases) enzyme.

Peptides ------->(by erepsin) Amino acids

Maltose----(Maltase) Glucose
Sucrose----->(sucrase) Glucose + Fructose
Lactose----(lactase) Glucose + Galactose
Emulsified fat----(Lipase) Fatty acids + Glycerol
 The Digestive System

Absorption of Food : The final products of food

absorbed in the intestine.
Amino acids and simple sugars by blood capillaries
of villi and enter the blood circulation.
Fatty acids and glycerol by lymph vessels or
lacteals of villi to lymphatic system and then
ultimately into the blood stream. The movement of
food in the intestine is very slow and taking about
four hours to enter the last part large intestine.
 The Digestive System

The Large Intestine :1.5 metres long. It has three parts

The Caecum : It is at the junction of small and large
intestine in the form of small blind pouch. From this a
small narrow worm shaped structure is projected called
vermiform appendix. It is a vestigial organ.

The Colon :More than a metre and broader than the
ileum. It is divided into ascending, transverse and
descending colon.

The Rectum :About 15 cm long, opens at the anus.
Opening of anus controlled by sphincter muscles.

.
 The Digestive System

No enzymes secretion from large intestine. Function of it is to
absorb water and to temporarily store undigested food and
wastes. After the absorption of water waste is called faeces
which pass into the rectum and are expelled at intervals this
process is called defaecation. Composition of faeces is-

75 % water,

25 % solid matter which consists of :-

- 30% dead bacteria (odour of faeces)
 10-20% fat
 2-3% proteins
 30% roughage
 Composition of faeces varies from person to person and
according to the kind of food consumed.
 The Digestive System

Assimilation of food :The conversion of the
absorbed digested food into body material. The
food is digested is carried by two ways- hepatic
portal system and lymphatic system. Hepatic portal
system is carrying glucose (simple sugar) amino
acids, vitamins and minerals to liver, where liver
converts excess glucose to glycogen
(glycogenesis) and when body is needed glucose it
will convert glycogen into glucose (glycogenolysis).
 The Digestive System

The aminoacids is used by body for body building
blocks of protein. Excess amount of amino acids
liver broken into urea by deaminiation. This urea
is removed by kidney in the form of urine. The
fatty acids and glycerol later join with large vein
carrying blood to the heart. Some fat body will
use for synthesis of certain compounds in the
body cells and balance will stored under skin as
fat or around certain visceral organs.
 The Digestive System

Liver :Largest gland of the body. 1500 gms on an average.
Location-reddish brown, upper right side of the abdomen below
diaphragm.

Experiments

The action of saliva : Take starch 1 gm, mix it with 100ml
water, heat it.

The action of pepsin on egg-white : an egg white into 500 ml of
water mix and take filtrate.

Test tube A- only pepsin, Test tube B- only HCl, Test tube C-
pepsin + Hcl,Test tube D-acid + boiled pepsin solution

Keep for 10 m9nutes at 35°C,
 The Digestive System

Effect of acidity and alkalinity on an enzyme
reaction : Above experiment repeat with
sodium bicarbonate solution, no change is
observed in alkaline medium with pepsin
enzyme.

Test for glucose : Glucose + Fehling’s solution
(heat it)= blue green colour will change into
deep brick colour(diabetes mellitus test)
 The Digestive System

Test for starch : starch powder+ water, then boil it to
make solution. Take cold solution add few drops of
iodine solution, colour of starch solution change into
blue-back from white.

Test for protein :boiled egg white part +few drops of
nitric acid, heat it, then rinse with water+ammonium
hydroxide= first colour change from white to yellow,
after adding ammonium hydroxide yellow to orange.

Test for fats and oils :Ground nuts+ piece of butter
plan paper, rub, it will change into translucent.