Homeostasis
and the Digestive System
Homeostasis and the Digestive System
Homeostasis
The Digestive System
The digestive system is the series of tube like organs that convert our meals into body fuel. Along the way, food is broken down, sorted, and reprocessed before being circulated around the body to nourish and replace cells and supply energy to our muscles.Moistening saliva fed into the mouth from nearby glands starts the process of chemical digestion using specialized proteins called enzymes.Once we swallow, digestion becomes involuntary.The esophagus empties into the stomach, a large, muscular chamber that mixes food up with digestive juices including the enzymes pepsin, which targets proteins, and lipase, which works on fats. Hydroelectric acid likewise helps to dissolve the stomach contents while killing potentially harmful bacteria.The first of three sections of the small intestine, the duodenum produces large quantities of mucus to protect the intestinal lining from acid in the chyme. The small intestine is where the major digestion and absorption of nutrients take place.These nutrients are taken into the bloodstream, via millions of tiny, finger like projections called villi, and transported to the liver.What's left in the digestive tract passes into the large intestine, where it's eaten by billions of harmless bacteria and mixed with dead cells to form solid feces.