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Lecture 04: Chapter 3 - Digestion, Absorption and Transport

A general overview of the processes common to all nutrients

Digestion the process by which food is broken down into absorbable units
The human body plan "a tube within a tube"
The Digestive Tract

Anatomy of the Digestive (also known as the Gastrointestinal [GI]) Tract: Figure 3-1
o The GI tract is a flexible muscular tube from the mouth, through the esophagus,
stomach, small intestine, large intestine, and rectum to the anus.
o Five sets of valves control access of the food being processed to these various
regions (see Figure 3.5):
The epiglottis
o Valve that covers trachea, which leads to lungs
o This prevents food from going into your lungs
o Cartilaginous valve
The two esophageal sphincters: the upper and the lower (the lower is also known as the
cardiac sphincter)
o When we eat, upper one relaxes and food gets into esophagus (opens when food is
swallowed)
o Then goes down esophagus and lower one relaxes and food gets into stomach
The pyloric sphincter
o Allows food to get into small intestine
The ileocecal valve
o Allows food to get into large intestine
The anus
The principal organs of the GI tract are the stomach and intestines.
Mouth:
o The process of digestion begins in the mouth, where the food is macerated and
blended with secretions from the salivary glands (saliva). Digestion of
carbohydrates begins in the mouth, because saliva contains amylases.
o Amylases: enzymes that break down starches (complex carbs) into simpler sugars
A word about enzymes
o Enzymes are biological agents (usually protein, but occasionally nucleic acid molecs)
that act specifically (as in acting on starches [amylase] or only on proteins [proteases]
to accelerate particular chemical rxn
o Proteins are the agents of biological fxn
o Enzymes speed up chemical rxns
o Enzymes are catalysts: they accelerate the rate of chemical rxns, but arent modified
or otherwise altered as consequences of the rxn
Digestive enzymes: proteins that act on food substances, breaking them down by hydrolysis
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("splitting with water") to form simpler substances, as in:
Dietary protein + H2O Amino acids
Proteases take protein in the diet + H2O amino acids
Stomach (Figure 3.1):
o Food enters the stomach when esophageal sphincters open
o Digestion continues in the stomach, which secretes gastric juice, which contains
HCl (hydrochloric acid) and enzymes that digest proteins: so-called proteases or
proteolytic enzymes.
o Pepsin is one example. Pepsin is a protein; it consists of more than 2500 atoms.
Pepsin is a gastric protease. (The HIV-1 protease is very similar to pepsin)
o In addition, the stomach secretes mucus, to protect itself from the HCl acid and
proteases. Very little carbohydrate or lipid is broken down while the food is in the
stomach.
o Little by little, the stomach transfers food from its upper portion to its lower portion,
adding gastric juice to it and grinding the food into a semi-liquid mass called chyme.
o The stomach can be thought of as a muscular bag
o The stomach muscles are the strongest ones in the GI tract and churn the food,
liquefying it into chime. Bit by bit, the chime is passed through the pyloric sphincter
from the stomach to the small intestine.
Small intestine:
o The common bile duct joins intestine just below the pyloric sphincter.
o Fluids from the pancreas and gall bladder enter the small intestine via the pancreatic
duct and the bile duct. The pancreas is acting as an exocrine gland its secreting
its products out of the body, into the digestive tract (salivary glands are also
exocrine)
o The pancreatic juice contains:
bicarbonate ion (HCO3-), an alkaline substance which neutralizes the acid
from the stomach;
and a set of enzymes: proteases that act on proteins, lipases that act on
lipids, and carbohydrolases acting on carbohydrates.
These enzymes break down these major energy-containing nutrients into their
component parts
Amino acids from proteins
Fatty acids and glycerol from the principal lipids
Sugars from the complex carbs
o The bile (produced continuously in the liver and collected and stored in the gall
bladder until needed) acts principally as a fat emulsifier.
The neutralization of stomach acid by bicarbonate ions:
o The reaction:
o H+ + HCO3- H2CO3 H2O + CO2
acid + bicarbonate carbonic acid water + carbon dioxide

o Acid (H+) and bicarbonate react to form carbonic acid, which spontaneously breaks
down to give water and carbon dioxide. Water and CO2 are harmless products of
acid neutralization
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o Digestion of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins takes place in the small intestine via the
enzymes contributed by the pancreatic juice as the food processes through the three
successive segments along the 10-foot length of the small intestine: the duodenum,
the jejunum, and the ileum.
The Muscular Action of Digestion: Peristalsis and Segmentation Figure 3-4
o Peristalsis - continuous wave-like motions, moving the intestinal contents along and
segmenting the food into small portions. Muscular wave contractions occur 3 times
per minute in the stomach and 10-12 times per minute in the small intestine.
Large intestine (aka the colon) (Figure 3-5):
o Three segments: ascending, transverse, and descending. In the large intestine,
water and minerals are absorbed from the food. Bacteria thrive in the large intestine
and contribute matter to the feces: the waste matter discharged from the colon.
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The bottom line:

During digestion, 5 diff organs produce digestive secretions: salivary glands, stomach, small
intestine, pancreas, liver (via gallbladder)

Digestion of energy-yielding nutriends

o Complex carbohydrates are digested in the mouth and small intestine;

o Protein is broken down in the stomach and small intestine

o Lipids are broken down only in the small intestine.

Absorption of the breakdown products of these nutrients takes place in the small intestine.

The large intestine functions in water and mineral absorption.