The Digestive System
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Basics
Function:
The function of the digestive system is to break down food into solid waste and nutrients. It removes the solid waste from the body and absorbs the nutrients to help the body and create energy.
Organs:
There are 5 major organs in the skeletal system: Your mouth, esophagus, stomach, and small and large intestine.
MOUTH: The mouth is where the whole process begins. In the mouth, teeth crush the food into smaller pieces while the tongue adds saliva to the food to make it more soft and mushy so it can travel down the esophagus.
ESOPHAGUS: The next organ is the esophagus. It is a tube that starts in the mouth and goes down into the stomach. The esophagus brings the food in the mouth down into the stomach.
STOMACH: After swallowed foods and liquids are swallowed, they end up being stored in the stomach and mixed with the digestive juices the stomach produces. This breaks down the food even further. The stomach then slowly empties out it's contents into the small intestine.
SMALL INTESTINE: The small intestine mixes the food with even more digestive juices from the liver, pancreas, and intestine. The walls of the small intestine then separates the waste and nutrients by absorbing all the nutrients within the mixture into the bodies bloodstream. The blood delivers the nutrients to the rest of the body through veins and arteries.
LARGE INTESTINE: Muscles push the mixture into the large intestine. The large intestine is made out of three parts, the cecum, the colon, and the rectum. It absorbs all the water and leftover nutrients transforming the liquid into feces. The feces is then stored in the rectum until it is pushed out of the body.
MOUTH: The mouth is where the whole process begins. In the mouth, teeth crush the food into smaller pieces while the tongue adds saliva to the food to make it more soft and mushy so it can travel down the esophagus.
ESOPHAGUS: The next organ is the esophagus. It is a tube that starts in the mouth and goes down into the stomach. The esophagus brings the food in the mouth down into the stomach.
STOMACH: After swallowed foods and liquids are swallowed, they end up being stored in the stomach and mixed with the digestive juices the stomach produces. This breaks down the food even further. The stomach then slowly empties out it's contents into the small intestine.
SMALL INTESTINE: The small intestine mixes the food with even more digestive juices from the liver, pancreas, and intestine. The walls of the small intestine then separates the waste and nutrients by absorbing all the nutrients within the mixture into the bodies bloodstream. The blood delivers the nutrients to the rest of the body through veins and arteries.
LARGE INTESTINE: Muscles push the mixture into the large intestine. The large intestine is made out of three parts, the cecum, the colon, and the rectum. It absorbs all the water and leftover nutrients transforming the liquid into feces. The feces is then stored in the rectum until it is pushed out of the body.
Interactions With Other Systems
The digestive system mainly works with two other systems: the circulatory and excretory.
Circulatory System
The digestive system works with the circulatory system to get the digested nutrients transported throughout the whole body. Like I explained earlier, the small intestine absorbs the nutrients transferring it into the bodies bloodstream. The nutrients are transported throughout the whole body through the veins and arteries of the circulatory system.
A mouth is like a garbage disposer because a garbage disposer:
The main function of the esophagus is to move food and liquids from the mouth down to the stomach. In order to be able to do so, they have to have specific physical traits that allow everything to run smoothly.
Excretory System
Though the urinary system doesn't directly interact with the excretory system, both systems work on controlling the amount of water in our body and are closely connected by that. While the digestive system works on collecting and removing feces from the body, the excretory system is filtering compounds from the blood stream and collecting them in urine.
Analogy: A Mouth is like a Garbage Disposer
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- mashes up food you push down it just like how you chew up your food inside your mouth with your teeth.
- pushes the mashed up food down a pipe just like how you push your chewed up food down your throat and into your esophagus.
Structure and Function: Esophagus
The main function of the esophagus is to move food and liquids from the mouth down to the stomach. In order to be able to do so, they have to have specific physical traits that allow everything to run smoothly.
- The esophagus is lined by a moist pink tissue called mucosa. The fact that the tissue is moist plays an extremely important part in allowing food to smoothing run down. Imagine if the esophagus was dry and parched. It would be painful for your food to run down.
- On the upper part of the esophagus there is a bundle of muscles. How do they help the esophagus perform it's function? Well, these muscles serve the purpose of preventing food and liquids from going down our windpipe and ensuring that they are going down the correct tube.
- On the bottom part of the esophagus there is another bunch of muscles. However, instead of making sure something goes into the esophagus (and not down your windpipe), these muscles make sure acids don't go in. The muscles close when the esophagus is not in use preventing acids from accidentally moving upwards or into the esophagus.
Now, you know why esophagus' are lined by mucosa and why they have bunches of muscles both on the top and bottom of the organ.
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