Think of digestion as an orchestra playing a beautiful musical score.
It starts with the conductor, the hypothalamus. When we detect food by seeing or smelling, it registers with our hypothalamus. Like a conductor raising his arms letting the muscians know to get ready, so does the hypothalamus sending signals to the digestive organs to get ready to receive. Our mouth begins to water, our tummy starts to make noise.
Our organs are the musicians, the nutrients are their sound. In the end, we can hear our body’s song as each cell receives the nutrients its needs to thrive. Let’s follow the rest of the process!
As food enters our mouths, the saliva breaks down the carbohydrates. From there, the food enters into the stomach. The stomach has several tasks. The acid environment erradicates parasites and bacteria that may have hitched a ride on the food. It also breaks down proteins into smaller components. The stomach also does some self-maintainance here using its acid to disinfect itself and keep its own bacterial population in check. The food combined with the gastric juices now becomes a very acidic paste, reaching a pH between 1.5-3.0, it is now known as chyme.
When the chyme reaches the appropriate pH, the doorway (pyloric sphincter) will open so the chyme can enter into the small intestine. Here, the chyme’s pH needs to be raised and the lining of the small intestine protected. The small intestine will release mucous to protect itself and the pancrease will add bicarbonate to raise the pH. Other enzymes join in along with some bile. Bile is responsible for emulsifying and absorbing fat. Completion of the chemical digestion of carbohydrates, protein, and fats occurs in the small intestine. It is also here that glucose molecules, transformed from the carbohydrates, amino acids, from proteins, and fatty acids, from fats are absorbed into the body.
Next musician to join is the large intestine. The large intestine recycles, captures, and expels. It pulls out water and bile to be recycled. It captures any remaining nutrients to convert into vitamins K, B1, B2, B12 and butyric acid. What is left over, is packaged up and expelled from the body.
Next, we will explore what can go wrong…What Can Go Wrong – Don’t Ignore the Score