Digestion Flashcards
What do the arteries do?
Carries blood away from the heart
Give 3 examples of organ systems and their functions
Skeletal system
Circulatory system
Digestive system
What is the order of which food goes down your digestive system?
Mouth Gullet Stomach Small intestine Large intestine Anus
What happens if you don’t produce much saliva?
It’s hard to swallow
Why is acid needed in the stomach?
To kill off bacteria
What must be special about the cell wall?
It must resistant to acid
Where does glucose go after it is absorbed from the small intestine wall into the bloodstream?
It goes into the mitochondria of all cells for respiration
Why are there no enzymes to break down vitamin and mineral molecules?
Because their small enough already to be absorbed into the blood
Why is the small intestine over 7M long?
Because it needs to break down food and it needs to absorb molecules and it needs a long time to do that
What does the mouth do?
Chews the food into small bits.
Adds salvia to lubricate food (make it slippy).
Contains enzymes called amylase to break down starch.
What does the gullet do?
Passes food along after it’s swallowed.
Muscular contractions called peristalsis squeezes food along
What does the stomach do?
Stores food
Hydrochtoric acid kills off bacteria
Contains enzymes called protease to break down proteins
What does the small intestine do?
The small intestine absorbs food molecules.
It has high PH (alkali) conditions
Small molecules like glucose are absorbed into the bloodstream.
What does the large intestine do?
Water is absorbed back into the bloodstream
Fibre swells up here and keeps the waste materials moving along
What does the Anus do?
Waste material (poo) is stored until it goes out of the body through the anus
What are enzymes and what do they do?
They are proteins which speed up the rate of chemical reactions in the body.
What is the enzyme in saliva called? What food type does it break down?
The enzyme in saliva is AMYLASE and it breaks down carbohydrates.
What happens in the large intestine?
Water is absorbed into the body.
Why does the stomach contain muscular tissue?
To move the stomach walk and churn up the food. This helps the enzymes break down the food.
Where is food absorbed?
Through the gut wall, which is in the small intestine, into the blood.
What are villi?
Little ‘finger-like’ things on the wall of the small intestine. Villi absorb the food.
Why are bacteria in the gut useful?
They produce enzymes that help break up the food
They make vitamins
They stop harmful bacteria growing and making you ill.
In digestion, does food simply pass though the stomach wall into the body?
No. It has to be ‘broken down’ (by enzymes) into small molecules, and then ‘absorbed’ through the gut wall (in the small intestine)
Where is water absorbed?
In the large intestine.
