Digestive Questions

1. What is digestive tract?
Answer: a long continuos tube with food first entering it at the mouth.

What happens to undigested materials in the digestive tract?
Answer: continues along the tube until it exits at the anus.

What is the function of the mouth in the digestion process?
Answer: food enters through the mouth

What is the term for the small mass of food that enters into the esophagus?
Answer: bolus

What triggers peristalsis
Answer: the presence of the bolus in the esophagus triggers peristalsis.

What is the function of the cardiac sphincter?
Answer: closes the entrance to the stomach and prevents its contents from reentering the esophagus

What is the mucous membrane?
Answer: digestive tract

How long is the small intestine
Answer: 20 feet long

Where does most digestion and absorption of nutrients take place?
Answer: small intestine

What increase the surface area of the small intestine?
Answer: villi

What is the first section of the small intestine? What is its function?
Answer: duodenum, the duodenum is very sensitive area of the digestive tract. Its receptors can detect the presence of hypo and hypertonic solutions.

Where is vile stored
Answer: gallbladder

What is segmentation?
Grabbing a tube tightly at various places around the middle and squeezing so that its contents are broken into smaller pieces.

When does the ileocecal sphincter open?
Answer: when the amount of food in the small intestine begins to build up, the sphincter opens to let it through.

What is the function of the anal sphincter?
Answer: stops waste from leaving the body until you want it to.

What is the function of the appendix in humans?
Answer: serves no apparent function in man and which sometimes becomes infected and must be removed.

Where does digestion begin?
Answer: in the mouth

What is gastric juice made of?
Answer: hydrochloric acid, and enzymes

Where are enzymes released in the small intestine produced?
Answer: Pancreas

What is the function of the following enzymes, anaylase, lactose, maltase, etc
Answer: they break apart lactose, maltose and sucrose respectively

There are two ways that nutrients get into the blood stream.
Answer: diffuse across the intestinal membrane and into the blood simply by flowing along the concentration gradient.