Digestive System & Metabolism 1

Digestive System & Metabolism
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Anatomy of the digestive system
Anatomy of the digestive system is a group of organs that work systematically in order to convert food into basic nutrients and energy to feed the body. The ingested food passes through the alimentary canal, also known as the gastrointestinal tract. This canal is composed of the oral cavity, esophagus, pharynx, stomach, large intestines, and small intestines. Apart from alimentary canal, there are other essential Accessory organs helping the body in food digestion, however, food do not pass through them. These digestive system Accessory organs include the tongue, teeth, salivary glands, gallbladder, liver, and pancreas. The anatomy of the digestive system sees the functions that aid the provision of energy and nutrients to the body, these functions include: ingestion, mixing and movement, secretion, absorption, digestion, and excretion (Gropper & Smith, 2013).
The primary function of the digestive system is to extract usable energy from food materials, and to provide necessary nutrients for growth of the body and its maintenance. This is a long but efficient process that grabs many nutrients from food and leaves materials that are unusable to be excreted. The basic strategy of the digestive system is to break down all food materials into basic molecules, and to absorb the useful molecules from food, while the unusable materials are left for excretion (Kahle, Leonhardt & Platzer, 2010).
The anatomy of the digestive system encompasses various cells within the alimentary canal. Some of the essential cells within the digestive system include the mucous cells, the chief cells, the parietal cells, and the enteroendoctrine cells. Mucous cells are secretory cells responsible for the production of acidic solution that contains the mucin protein. Mucous cells are located in the upper and superficial parts of the gastric glands. These cells make the stem for the other cells in the mucosal stomach glands. Due to their location in the region of the neck, mucous cells secret a mucous solution under vagal stimulation only, and not in the dormant stomach. Mucous cells in the neck region are shorter than those in the stomach surface (Hvelplund, Niel...