Healthy Lifestyle

Like a complicated chemical factory, the digestive system breaks down the food you eat into its usable nutrients. These are eventually absorbed into the blood and lymph, which transport them throughout the body. The gut is about 9m long and stretches from mouth to anus. It divides into the mouth, gullet, stomach, small intestine, large intestine or colon, rectum or bowel and anus.

When everything is working normally, the digestive system is a highly efficient food absorption and waste disposal system, sending message to your brain that tell you when to eat, what to eat and when to expel unwanted waste products. Each section has a particular function and it sparks into action automatically. When you are thinking of food, or your nose caught a slight smell of the food, your digestive systems will releases saliva into the mouth.

Digestion usually takes around 24 hours, but it can take up to three days. In your mouth chewing and saliva break food down into a paste ball, or bolus, which passes down the esophagus into your stomach as you swallow. Food is pushed down by powerful muscular contractions called peristalsis and these strong waves, a bit like a digestive Mexican wave, occur throughout the gut.

The stomach is a muscular bag shaped like a fat. It is just below the diaphragm and can expand to hold about 1.5 liters or 2 and half pints. Food is worked on and broken down by the mixing and churning of the stomach and acid secreted by the lining and by digestive enzymes, such as pepsin.