Digestion Research Paper

Digestion is the process of breaking down complex food into a form of absorbable food particles. The process of digestion first occurs in the mouth, where the teeth is used to grind the food and break down the food into smaller food particles. When we chew, our teeth mechanically soften the food and the salivary glands produce an enzyme called salivary amylase, which mixes with and further breaks down, the food. The next stage in digestion happens in the stomach. The stomach secretes gastric juice which the stomach utilizes to prevent bacterial growth and kills bacteria in the food that enters the body. There is then the major digestive of breakdown of proteins which occurs during the stomach digestion. Pepsin is an enzyme found in the stomach and is used to degrade proteins from food into peptides. …show more content…
In the small intestines, the pancreas and the liver contributes digestive juice which travels through a duct leading to the duodenum as well as the small intestine containing intestinal juice. The intestinal juice consists of bile, bicarbonate, and digestive enzymes. Pancreatic juice is an example of digestive enzymes that helps digests fats, carbohydrates, and proteins. The bicarbonate is used and a buffer to neutralize the acidic chyme as it enters the small intestines. Bile is secreted by the liver which and it is stored in the gallbladder. The gallbladder sends the bile to the duodenum which helps the bile be emulsified. The next stage is absorption which occurs after the food has been digested through the stomach to the small intestines. The digested food is absorbed through the jejunum and ileum of small intestines. The final stage is elimination which is the excretion of the waste