Anatomy For Beginners (part 1) -Welcome To the Digestive System.
Posted: Wednesday, April 08, 2009
by Connor Davidson
Recently I wrote an article on how the TV works. Now I am going to take you through the human anatomy. If you are a little squeamish maybe this article is not one for you. I got the idea for writing this from Dr. Von Hagens; you may be familiar. Dr. Hagens make a documentary entitled anatomy for beginners in which he dissects humans-donated to science –explained how the body worked. I am going to explain it to you in a series of parts. I am however not going to be so very graphic in my descriptions. I will start with the digestive system.
When you eat food it first goes into your mouth and is (or should be) broken up ito small pieces by your teeth.
When you eat food it first goes into your mouth. In your mouth digestion begins – your saliva contains a substance called amylase. Amylase is a type of substance called an enzyme which speeds up reactions. The Amylase takes the big carbohydrates in your food called starch and breaks them into little sugars called glucose or maltose.
The food then passes down a pipe called the oesophagus. The food moves down the oesophagus by a process called peristalsis. Peristalsis is quite simple: as food moves down the oesophagus, the muscles immediately in front of the food relax and the one immediately behind contracts. This process is repeated until the food has all been moved down and into the stomach.
Inside the stomach food is broken down in two ways- mechanically and chemically. Then mechanical breakdown is done by the stomach expanding and contracting to crush the food into smaller pieces. The chemical breakdown is done by acid and another two enzymes called pepsin and lipase. The pepsin digests protein and the lipase digests fat.
Once the food has been broken down it moves to the small intestine. The small intestine takes the useful part of our food and absorbs it into the blood stream. The Large intestine deals with the less useful products of digestion – by reabsorbing water and transporting waste. The waste is then removed and the process starts again when you next have a meal.
So there you have it. That's the digestive system and that is how it works. At the base of it, its not all that complex.
Connor Davidson is a UK based writer. He writes on wide variety of topics with his main interest being science, maths and engineering.
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Feel free to reprint these articles on your website by using the reprint button. If you have any questions or comments please post them below - I read all comments.
You can keep up to date with his writings by following him on twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/Connor_Davidson.
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Top-level comments on this article: (3 total)Connor, this was simply but well written. You covered all the basics in an easy to understand, nontechnical manner. Good job.Thanks.I will be working thought the whole body in the same way.
I already knew about the digestive system, but thanks for the great article anyway!Thanks for the comment.
Simple to read and understand. Thanks.Thank you for the comment.
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