Digestion Aids and Human Digestion Anatomy and Physiology Information...

Digestion aids and human digestion anatomy and physiology is a complex system which allows food to be digested safely and adequately which is so important for good health.

What digestion is technically is the breakdown of different substances within the body so that they may more easily be introduced into the blood stream.

The Cephalic phase is the beginning of digestion. This stage occurs when the saliva begins to accumulate in your mouth which allows for lubrication and pre-breakdown of food and liquids.

Mechanical digestion occurs when the food is being chewed by the teeth and is broken down into tiny particles that allow for it to more easily be introduced to the blood stream.

This mix of both chemical and mechanical digestion is the best way to get food into the bloodstream in an adequate fashion that can sustain life.

You may wonder what happens when the food reaches your stomach. Actually, the process is a particularly interesting one. Acids, bile and enzymes in the stomach proceed to finish the job that your mouth didn't and break the food up into very tiny particles.

These processes are necessary for getting the particles into the human bloodstream so that cells can absorb the food and nutrients for their benefit.

These microscopic bits of food then go through the process of osmosis which is the diffusion of a solvent through a semi-permeable membrane.

The stomach is a relatively small j-shaped pouch and all around the stomach are thick muscles that aid in digestion. The food that enters into this small muscular pouch is almost immediately mixed with gastric acid and pepcin.

Surprisingly, the reason that this pepcin is introduced has really nothing to do with breaking up the food. Actually, the pepcin isn't sufficiently acidic to break down anything in particular, though it does kill potentially harmful microorganisms that we unknowingly digest with our food.

Certain ingredients in our food such as alcohol, vinegar or other liquid-based substances don't have to go through the breaking down process and instead go into the bloodstream directly.

After food is processed in the stomach, the foods next destination is the small intestine. Bile in the small intestine is what really emulsifies fats and aids in absorption.

Small hair-like structures called 'villi' are what is responsible for pushing this food through the digestive tract.

During the last stages of digestion, the large intestine and colon contain mostly waste products, fiber and water. The colon, in contrast to the germ-free stomach, is heavily populated with both "good" and "bad" bacteria.

When your system is healthy, the good bacteria run the show in the colon, keeping the bad bacteria under control. Probiotics are certainly digestion aids and are the good bacteria found in your intestines as well as other parts of the body, such as the mouth, the urinary tract and the vagina.

The small intestine also contracts, which aids the villi in moving the food through to the large intestine. The large intestine mainly holds substances which will later be expelled through the rectum.

The final process of digestion is when feces is expelled through the rectum. Generally, the feces is left-over food which our body either didn't process or didn't need for any number of different reasons. After we expel feces, our body continues the process incoming food over again.

There are a variety of different gastrointestinal chemicals and also chemical processes that food digestion aids. Saliva, even though you may not have thought about it before, actually helps to begin breaking down the food we eat on a very small level.

The real reason we have saliva is to continuously keep the gum lining and teeth free of small food particles. A lack of saliva would actually create an overload of bacteria within the mouth, which would be not be a healthy situation.

Carbohydrates are what provide us the energy we need to continue our day. Alcoholic beverages like beer and certain coolers might have carbohydrates but these are called "empty carbohydrates" and they really have no sort of healthy side effects.

Always try and stick with carbohydrates which will without a doubt be helpful to you and to your body. You might be surprised to learn that all carbohydrates are broken down into simple sugars so they may be more easily absorbed by the blood.

Other carbohydrates which cannot be broken down by the body will eventually pass through the digestive system only to be expelled. It takes about thirty or forty minutes for food to be digested to such an extent that it can be broken down.

It is very difficult to separate fats from proteins, proteins from carbohydrates and also carbohydrates from fats. Most of the times the problem with diet isn't that people are eating too much but that they are eating the wrong things.

Understanding what your body responds well to and what it doesn't respond well to are very important parts of leading a healthy lifestyle. For example indigestion affects the absorption of nutrients, making you more likely to get sick and indigestion can cause food allergies.

If you are not absorbing your nutrients properly, you will not have the vitamins and minerals to stay healthy and avoid disease. Your overall health is closely tied to the health of the digestion aids bacteria called probiotics.

When the probiotics are sick, often so are you! Along with our digestive enzymes, they play a major role in digesting food and moving it out of the body. Probiotics (digestion aids) play a big role in your immune system, they manufacture the B vitamins, they help you reduce cholesterol and help keep the hormones balanced.

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