Digestion Flashcards
What are essential vs non-essential nutrients?
Essential: Nutrients that cannot be synthesized by the body and have to be included in the diet.
Non: Can be synthesized by the body, must not be ingested
6 classes of nutrients
Carbohydrates
Protein
Fat
Vitamin
Mineral
Water
What are vitamins?
+Eg
Organic molecules with complex chemical structures that are often essential
eg. Vitamin B, D etc
What are minerals? What are they important for? What if you don’t get enough of them?
Chemical elements and inorganic substances that are essential nutrients.
They are important for structures such as teeth, bones
Worsened bone mineralization
What are conditionally essential nutrients?
When technically organic compounds produced by the body are sufficient, however, due to disorders (such as cardiovascular disease), their biosynthesis is inadequate.
What is the human digestive system?
A group of organs that work together to digest and absorb nutrients. Their structure allows it to move, digest , absorb and egest food.
What is the alimentary canal?
The tube includes the mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, and large intestine. The whole digestive tube.
What is the role of the mouth?
Mechanical digestion and some chemical digestion of carbohydrates
What is the esophagus?
A tube that carries food from mouth to stomach
What is the simple role of the liver?
It secretes bile
What is the main role of the large intestine?
Absorbs water from indigestible food and carries the water from the body.
Where does the most digestion and absorption of nutrients occur?
The small intestine
What is the role of the small intestine?
Absorbing nutrients and digestion
What does the pancreas do?
It makes bile and helps digest fats.
What is the duodenum?
The beginning part of the small intestine.
Where does mechanical digestion of food and some chemical digestion take place?
The stomach
What happens in the stomach?
Mechanical digestion of food and some chemical digestion.
What comes before the anus?
The rectum
What doesn’t have to be digested?
Minerals, vitamins, and water. THey can be directly absorbed
What has to be digested?
Large, insoluble polymer molecules:
Carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, nucleic acids.
What is digestion?
Breaking down food via chemical and enzymatic action in the alimentary canal.
What is absorption?
When digested food is moved from the digestive system to the bloodstream (the whole body).
This occurs in the small intestine.
What happens in the small intestine?
Digested food is absorbed into the bloodstream so that nutrients can be transported through the whole body.
What is assimilation and where does it occur?
In the small intestine, nutrients are absorbed through the cell tissues. Over time fragments of these nutrients form more complex substances.
What is egestion?
The discharge of undigested/waste material
What do digestive enzymes do? Give an example
Catalyze the hydrolysis of insoluble food molecules to soluble end products. They SPEED UP
- REDUCE ACTIVATION ENERGY
Sucrose is broken down into glucose and fructose by the enzyme sucrase
What is it called when the active site of an enzyme slightly shifts to fit the substrate?
Induced fit.
Explain the second step in enzyme function (substrate is already bound to the active site.
Amino acids bind to the substrate and distort bonds, starting the reaction.
What is the composition of an enzyme and the substrate called?
Substrate enzyme complex.
What is hydrolysis?
The splitting of molecules via the addition of water. Polymers are turned into monomers
What is the monomer of starch?
glucose
What is the monomer of lipids?
fatty acid + glycerol
What is a gland?
An organ which synthesizes a substance meant for release
What are the two types of glands?
Exo and endocrine glands
What do endocrine glands secrete? Where do they secrete into?
Hormones
into the bloodstream.
What do exocrine glands secrete? Where do they secrete into?
“other stuff”
- oil
- sweat
enzyme
INTO DUCTS
What is an acinus?
A cluster of exocrine glands
- they form hollow spheres
Multiple acini are found in
One gland
1 acinus is the fundamental unit of a gland