The Digestive System

1. The Digestive System By Christopher Cone

2. The Stages • There are various places and stages the food has to go though. We have all of these stages that make up the system. All levels of the digestive system are very important. There are 5 stages, the stages are: • Mouth • Esophagus • Stomach • Small Intestine • Large Intestine

3. The Mouth • The mouth is the first part of our adventure through the digestive system. • It is where the food comes through first. • Mechanically it digests the food by crushing it up and mashing it around • While Chemically it digests it with saliva that makes starches into simple sugars the body can use. Specifically Amylase breaks down the starches. • After all of this occurs it is sent down the Esophagus as a ball like structure called a Bolus.

4. The Esophagus • Once it starts its way down the Esophagus no breathing can occur, this is because you will choke if your food goes down the wrong tube. So while one tube opens the other closes. • Your food can’t just simply go down your Esophagus it needs help. This is where the process of Peristalsis comes in. Peristalsis is the process in which the Esophagus pushes the food down with a series of muscles. As it goes down it is covered in the chemical of mucus. This helps it along the way and prepares it for your stomach digestion. • When you see a cat vomiting up a hairball you can tell that it is doing this arching thing with it’s back. What they are doing is the opposite of Peristalsis to get the fur ball up.

5. The Stomach • After the Esophagus your bolus (or food) comes into the Stomach. • The stomach is described as a big muscle sac. Chemically pepsin and the acid called hydrochloric acid come into effect. They start to really break down the food to usable vitamins and needed things. • The Stomach muscles contract and churn the contents of your stomach until becomes this substance called Chyme. • The chyme then goes to your small intestine.

6. Small Intestine • Your small intestines main job is to get the nutrients. • This is where the most chemical reactions take place. Here all of the assorted minerals and vitamins are broken down and picked up. They are picked up by cells lining the inner tubular passage. At the end of all of this almost entirely all nutrients are absorbed into the blood stream. This displays how some systems rely on each other. This is because the circulatory system needs the nutrients to send around our body and deliver to the cells.

7. Large Intestine • Once the chyme has left the small intestine it enters the large intestine. • Here in the large intestine there is one major and important process. This process is to suck out all of the water that remains. The large intestine can’t take out too much otherwise you have constipation. And if it takes out too little you then have diarrhea. • This is another example of how two systems work together to do a good job.

8. Concluding Words All in all the digestive system plays a very important part in our body. It not only gets rid of our wastes but gives us nutrients. We learned that it plays along with other systems too. Like with the Circulatory system and how it gives nutrients to flow through the veins of our body.