Digestion Digestion starts in the mouth, food is inserted in the mouth and chewed so it can easily be digested.

This process is called ingestion. Food is chewed so it can go threw to the oesophagus more easily. The food is inserted and triggers an oral reflex that activates the salivary glands. Saliva is produced by the salivary glands and continues, to soften the food; antibacterial compounds kill the bacteria and salivary amylase (enzyme found in the mouth) and start to begin the important breakdown of starch to maltose. Whilst in the mouth, the tongue rolls it up into a ball and mixed with saliva. After this process, the food goes past the pharynx and goes past the epiglottis. The epiglottis reduces the chances of choking as it shuts the opening of the larynx opening into pharynx. It then goes down the oesophagus, also known as the gullet. The oesophagus is a long muscular tube connecting the mouth and the stomach. It runs directly behind the heart muscle. The food moves along the digestive tract by muscular contraction. The oesophagus and the small intestine are made up of two layers of muscle. One layer has muscle fibers in rings (circular muscle) around the tract and the other runs the length (longitudinal muscle) of the tract. The muscle works as one-part contracts while the other bit relaxes and then the food enters the stomach. The stomach is located directly below the diaphragm. Once it has entered the stomach, the food is churned along with gastric juice. Gastric juice is produced in the stomach wall. This contains hydrochloric acid, mucus, pepsin that digests the protein. Mucus protects the stomach wall from self-digestion. The hydrochloric acid lowers the pH to the optimum for pepsin to work. The proteins are then broken down to polypeptide chains by pepsin. In this part of the system, all the bacteria have been killed. The peptide bonds only breaks down certain amino acids. Food spends around 2-3 hours in the stomach according to the Edexcel International GCSE Biology Student Book. The semi-digested food is then held back in the stomach by a ring of muscle at the outside of the stomach called the sphincter muscle. When it relaxes, it releases the food into the first part of the small intestine, the duodenum. But before they enter the duodenum, the part of the food which is kept (nutrients) it goes through the liver where it is broken down ever further, stored and detoxified so it can enter the blood to circulate around the body. Another part before entering the small intestine, the gall bladder plays a part. The gall bladder produces bile that breaks fat lumps into smaller droplets. This is called emulsification and increases the surface area for lipase enzyme to act on. The bile is produced in the liver and then stored in the gall bladder. The bile passes from the gall bladder down the bile duct and into the duodenum.

The small intestine contains two parts the duodenum (this is where the main digestion part is complete) and the ileum (this is where absorption takes place). More enzymes are added throughout this part until it has been fully broken down into soluble end products, which can be taken in. The ileum wall produces intestinal juice containing 2 more enzymes, maltase, break down maltose to glucose, and peptidase, which breaks down peptides to amino acids. The large intestine is the penultimate part of the digestion system where by water is absorbed from the intestine into the blood. Here, solid faeces are formed and it is stored here until egestion. The faeces mainly contain, cellulose and other indigestible remains, water, dead or living bacteria and cells lost from the lining of the gut. They also contain dead red blood cell, which is why it is most of the time a dark color. The first part of the colon is absorbing the remaining water contents leaving it in faeces. This is then stored in the rectum, until it comes out through the anus. This is how the digestive system works.