Digestion Process In The Stomach

Your digestive system consist of many parts. Among them are the esophagus, stomach, the small and large intestines, tubular structures, through which food and waste product pass and in which digestion takes place. Two large glands, the liver and the pancreas, furnish some of the enzymes and other substances needed for digestion. Your gallbladder, a hollow organ located just under your liver, stores bile manufactured by your liver.

The food you eat is propelled through your digestive tract by muscular contractions that for the most part are automatic. The process of digestion changes the components of food into a form that eventually will be absorbed into your bloodstream. After the nutrients are absorbed, your digestive tract eliminates unwanted material.

Digestion begins when you chew your food. The food is broken into smaller pieces by your teeth and, at the same time, is mixed with saliva secreted by your salivary glands. Your saliva contains an enzyme called ptyalin that begins to change starches into sugars.

Chewing reduces the food to a mushy consistency. When you swallow, the food is propelled into the back part of your throat, past the opening of the voice box, and into the upper part of your esophagus. Food is prevented from entering your larynx by a flap of soft tissue that closes as food passes into the esophagus. When the epiglottis fails to close completely, a minor coughing fit may result. Such an episode is said to be the result of the food having gone down the wrong tube.

The walls of your stomach consist of various layers of powerful muscles. These muscles serve an important mechanical function as they cause the stomach to churn, breaking the food into smaller and smaller pieces. In addition, gastric juices manufactured by the glands that line your stomach mix with the food particles. These juices contain pepsin, a digestive enzyme that begins to break down proteins in the mixture, and hydrochloric acid, which creates the proper environment for pepsin to work.

Although it serves a useful function, your stomach is not vital to the breakdown of food and its subsequent absorption. Only small amounts of such food as alcohol, simple sugars, and some medications are actually absorbed in the stomach.

There is a delicate balance in your stomach between the acid produced by its glands and the resistance of your stomach lining to that acid. If this balance is upset, the result may be damage to the stomach lining, such as peptic ulcer or gastritis.

Food leaves your stomach in two phases. The upper portion of your stomach contracts first, pushing the more liquid material into your small intestine. The more solid food leaves later, primarily by the action of the muscles in the lower part of your stomach. The partially processed food, chyme, that travels through the pyloric canal into the first portion of your small intestine, duodenum.

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