In fact, eating is obviously there is best for health. This is our only way to bring essential nutrients to our body. And today, instead of speaking about the benefits of broccoli, Parton travel along your digestive system, to understand how you can help your body to take advantage at most good things that you eat.
What is digestion?
From the mouth to the anus, the intestinal track resembles a string of disassembly of 8 to 9 meters long. The food arrived full on one side, and unusable waste are rejected on the other. The way nutrients are extracted from food and absorbed by blood the needs of the body. This process is called digestion (when the string is wrong, this is called... indigestion!).
The purpose of digestion is to break the large pieces of food that are on your plate into particles small enough so they can pass through the wall of your intestine, in your blood. Your body uses mechanical means, and chemical products, to do this. By understanding how your digestive system works, you can improve the way you feel, in your "tripe". We will follow the route of a food - for example, a rib steak-frite - from the top to the bottom.
Food took five to ten seconds to down the esophagus and enter in the stomach, where they remain for two to six hours to be partially digested. The final digestion and absorption of nutrients occurs in the small intestine and are five to six hours. In 12 to 24 hours, all digestion residues pass through the large intestine and feces are expelled.
Digestion begins... in your brain
Before your meal you imagine as it will be good. Your eye is suddenly much more attentive to what may look like in the food. Your nose you drew in the direction of a bakery which he feels the good smell of croissants. These are essential steps for your eyes and your nose allows your brain and your body to prepare to eat: the mere fact of thinking to food triggers the secretion of digestive fluids which you need.
Saliva your mouth, and your stomach starts en route to the mere thought of that first bite of Entrecôte grilled, salted, and juicy, which will come into contact with your palate.
Chew, chew!
Your MOM was right when she told you to properly chew your food. When the piece of rib enters your mouth, the first step of the disassembly begins. Your teeth between the meat into small pieces, increasing the surface area on which chemical digestion - called enzymes - will be able to act and enter.
Chewing allows to break the fibers that bind the food and remove the envelope of protection of your food so that your enzymes to the good things that are inside. Saliva, which began to sink in the mouth, in advance envelope small pieces of Entrecôte and fries with the first digestive enzyme salivary amylase. Amylase breaks into small molecules of sugar carbohydrates. Separated from their friends, they are now ready to be broken into even smaller pieces, if necessary, to cross the intestinal barrier and penetrate into the blood. Fat also began to be digested in your mouth with tiny jets of an enzyme that dissolves the fat, called lingual lipase.Down along the digestive tract, you will notice that the name of the enzyme is formed by combining the suffix "ase" with the nutrient on which they act, as lipase to digest lipids, proteinase to dissolve the proteins and actase to dissolve the lactose (milk sugar).
Saliva lubricates also food, allowing your Rib Steak fries to slide down your esophagus, the tube that connects mouth to the stomach. Saliva is the magic potion of our body. In addition to helping digestion, recently found that it contains a substance called epidermal growth factor, that regenerates and heals damaged or irritated intestinal tissues. This is perhaps the reason why animals licked their wounds. Rejoice: your body automatically produces a litre per day of saliva!
Eat by more bite, while chewing your food and swallow slowly helps better prepare your food for the next stage of the journey. You swallow less air (therefore less references), and you are more attentive to the signals that indicate that your stomach is full. Finally, you can avoid causing a traffic jam in your string of disassembly. Your mom told you not only of chewing, no doubt you preached it also so you eat more slowly. Once more, she was right.
The esophagus, a funny tube
The esophagus is a funny pipe of about 30 cm which "pushes" the food to the stomach. Inside, it is very smooth and covered with a fluid called mucus, which allows food to slide easily.
The food just swallow form a dumpling, which is being forced into the esophagus through the muscles of his wall.
These muscles are similar to rings that bind one after the other every 9 seconds. They thus advance food, even if you eat coated or poirier.
Mix, mix!
When she enters your stomach, your mouth porridge mixes with what was already there. The stomach is a kind of food processor to mix with a mechanical and chemical effect. It is a Pocket formed by intersecting muscles. When they contract, muscles mix food in every sense, as you pétririez of the bread dough. The mucosa of the stomach secretes gastric juices, including:
•hydrochloric acid, which dissolves the food;
•an enzyme called pepsin, which breaks the protein;
•and an enzyme called lipase, which dissolves the fats.
Such as fruits and vegetables crushed purée in a food processor, food is brewed and mixed with digestive juices until they look like a thick soup. This liquid is called "chyme.
Circular muscles surrounding your stomach at the top and bottom to prevent your food back, but also down until they are passed to the liquid state. Sometimes, these muscles may present malfunctions. The muscle at the lower end, called pyloric, may be too tight and prevent the contents of the stomach to empty down in childhood. This problem is called pyloric stenosis and results in vomiting frequency and increasing severity. The muscle of the upper end of the stomach is called gastro-oesophageal sphincter, and can become too loose. The contents of the stomach does not remain indoors during the stage of mixing of food. This causes because reflux.
Hydrochloric acid is strong enough to dissolve the meat and kill most of the harmful bacteria that may be in your food. Therefore, the stomach does not merely to digest, but also disinfects. However, he destroyed all the bacteria that we eat. Some of these bacteria, which are capable of suvivre to the harsh conditions in the stomach, can then pass into the intestine, where it settled. In Exchange to consume all the food they want, they play an important role for health and digestion.
For comfortable digestion, the mucosa of the stomach must secrete just the right amount of acid at the right time. If it occurs while the stomach is empty (which can happen when you are stressed), acid irritates the mucous membrane, causing unpleasant sensations. In addition, in the absence of food, acid can penetrate into the upper part of the intestine, the duodenum, which is very sensitive. Acid begins to Digest the duodenum, causing ulcers. Substances such as alcohol or coffee on an empty stomach (more), can that you you eat of the Interior, literally. The excess acid can also go up to the esophagus, causing heartburn or reflux burns.
Useful to remember on digestion tips
The mouth and the stomach are primarily used to prepare the food for absorption in the small intestine (small intestine). However, certain substances such as alcohol, caffeine, and certain drugs (such as aspirin) can be directly absorbed by the mucosa of the stomach. This explains that the voice can become Pasty and to feel nervous, before even to have finished his glass or his cup of coffee. The consumption of these substances on an empty stomach increases the speed of their absorption.
Gurgling: when your stomach and vacuum, and that he expects to eat, he began to contract, but it mixes of the air, which causes of gurgling. The burps, stomach and vomiting noises are the "compensation" of the digestive system that works too hard.
The vomiting reflex serves to protect the intestines of undesirable substances. It simply returns the food from where it comes. The brain raises the diaphragm, abdominal and stomach, muscles which contract suddenly, forcing the contents of the stomach to be empty by top. This is why vomit gives a feeling of relief in the belly.
Eat the right amount to properly digest: the size of the meals should not exceed that of the stomach. To get an idea of the size of your stomach, open your hand and hold your thumb and fingers tight one against the other. Your stomach is twice as long and wide as your Palm. The next time that you are about to make an excess, put your hand next to your plate and compare. (Experience also with the small fist of a baby.) (You can now see why small stomachs turned so easily).
All parts of the digestive system are designed for small frequent meals, rather than feasts.
The passage
Now that your Entrecôte-frites was chewed, brewed, and liquefied, it is ready to be pushed by the stomach to the small intestine where digestion itself occurs. The essential proteins and carbohydrates for your meal is entered after a few hours, but fat still remain in the stomach, since the water and oil do not mix. This is why you feel satisfied longer after a meal rich in fat after a meal rich in carbohydrates and proteins.
While the chyme, the "soup" in your stomach, enters the small intestine, begins the most important part of digestion. The first part of the intestine called the duodenum (from the latin "twelve", because the duodenum of an adult is 12 digits long). This is that the bulk of digestion occurs.
The food is assimilated by your body, it must pass through the intestinal mucosa. Indeed, your gastrointestinal path is outside of your body. It is at this time that the most exciting phenomena occur.
First, because the wall of your intestine is very delicate and does not support the acidity of the stomach, it secretes antacids - bicarbonate - to neutralize the acidity. Moving along your intestine, the food still receives digestive juices jets, which digest proteins, to break them into pieces small enough to pass through the wall of the intestine, in the blood.
This is that blood can transport them to different parts of the body to be burned or assimilated to your body.
During this time, in the stomach, fat are finally ready to come out. While they enter the small intestine, they are sprayed with a jet of bile made by the gall bladder and some pancreatic lipases. Bile forms an emulsion with the grease and SOAP. And, like SOAP, bile is dissolved by actually fat, but splits into small particles that are then more easily broken into smaller pieces still by intestinal lipases to pass into the blood.
Fatty acid molecules then pass out of the intestine by small doors reserved for them. Instead of directly through the blood, such as carbohydrates and proteins, they are put in a microscopic sas in special cells of the intestinal mucosa. There, they are "stuffed" in small bags that are outside then through the door back and charged on small barges in the blood called lipoprotein.
These small molecular barges then circulate in the blood until they find a dock for landing the fat on a cell. Do you represent each cell of the body with millions of platforms of landing on their membrane. If the cell has more need of grease, it closed docks, so that lipoprotein can not come ashore, and is forced to continue to circulate in the blood until you find a place to land the fat. The two places that always receive the most fat are the liver and fat cells. The barges lay their excess fat either around the waist, hips, thighs, or in the liver where they are dissolved by the bile, and then evacuated in the intestine as waste.
The law of supply and demand
The enzymes involved in the work of digestion work according to the law of supply and demand. If the intestinal mucosa and pancreas glands secrete enough enzymes to break down and absorb all the food coming, gut feel good. But if there are more food there is enzyme for the treatment, the doors close, and surpluses are in the lower part of the intestine where they are not welcome. It is indigestion. How to maintain a balance between supply and demand? You had guessed. Eat by reasonable quantities to give the enzymes a chance to win the fight.
The inside wall of your intestine resembles a plush carpet, with trillions of small folds that increase the possible with the food contact surface, and therefore the absorption of nutrients.
It does that a cell of epaissseur, which has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that the lining is thin, and that nutrients pass easily. They enter through the front door of the cell, and exit through the rear door. The disadvantage is that the mucous membrane is fragile and very easily irritated or infected. When this occurs, food is poorly absorbed, and occur with diarrhea, pain addominales, gas and bloating. When cells are damaged, it may lack the enzymes to digest certain foods, for example (common after an intestinal infection) lactose. This is why doctors recommend avoiding products difficult to digest, such as milk, after an intestinal infection. The intestine cells can regenerate and heal, but it takes several weeks.
Water and waste
When your Entrecôte-frites completed his journey 7 metre, and 10 hours, until the end of the small intestine, most of the nutrients have been absorbed. What remains begins a route of 1.70 m along the colon, or large intestine. It is the calm after the storm. The process of digestion is low but the colon is not passive so far. He plays a role active and decisive for your health, so it can be said that your body is as healthy as your colon.
The first vital function of the colon is to regulate the hydration of the body. The colon absorbs water from food and bring it to your thirsty body. If there is not enough water in your diet, the colon is water your body through the stool to avoid constipation. A good water balance in the colon is healthy stool. In fact, one of the main changes a person observed after having restored a nutritional balance to keep it in good health, is to have less abundant, soft stools (not diarrhea), several times a day, rather than the base of a huge saddle once French model by day, or every two days.
Microbes in the bowels
Billions of bacteria live in the intestines, especially the large intestine. Called intestinal flora, because they are like the intestine plant life, they contribute to the healthy colon - and whole body. These intestinal bacteria are also known as probiotics, because they are favorable to life.
The two main categories of healthy bacteria in the colon are the Lactobacillus and bifido-bacteria. They live in a symbiotic relationship in the colon, which means in a balanced exchange relationship. In exchange for a warm living area, they bring our bodies from piles of good things. They held the harmful bacteria in check. They ferment the soluble fibre in food, produce (AGCC) short-chain fatty acids that feed the cells of the large intestine, stimulate the healing and reduce the development of bowel cancer. The AGCC are also absorbed by the intestines and travel to the liver where they decreased the production of cholesterol. If you have recurrent digestive problems, you can try to treat them by taking supplements of lactobacillus and bifidus, available in most pharmacies but also in supermarket.
Note that when the normal bacteria that live in your colon "eat" some foods (such as polysaccharides in beans), they produce the gas in their own digestion. The food they prefer are polysaccharides of starchy foods such as beans, Brussels sprouts, prunes and virtually all types of cereals, except rice, which seems to be the starch category best suited to worldly life. Galactose in milk and pectin are also popular foods of bacteria. However, the actual amount of gas they produce varies greatly from one individual to another. And generally, the volume of food absorbed is more important than the type of food.
End
Contractions of the colon move waste (known as faeces) in the last five centimetres of the intestine, called colorectal, where they are removed. Their mere presence triggers a reflex of very effective deportation as long as people are not something to spoil. Eat too little fiber, drinking too little fluid, eat too many fats (lipids slows down intestinal transit) or simply ignore the calls to evacuate, may eventually stop the reflex. (Children between five and ten years, especially boys, tend to ignore the calls).
Feed your bowel correctly, listen to their calls, and they will make you great service.
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