Human Health And Systems Flashcards
Ingestion/eating
Food is taken in by the body.
Digestion
Food is broken down.
Absorption
Digested food is passed through the blooodstream
Assimilation
Using the food in the cells of the body
Elimination
Getting rid of undigested food
Physical digestion
Taking large pieces of food and breaking them down into smaller pieces. Happens in the mouth (teeth)
Stomach (churning)
Chemical digestion
Involves the use of chemicals called enzymes to break down food
• Enzymes are chemicals that speed up reactions without being used up in the reaction (catalyst)
• Enzymes act on a substrate and
breaks it down into a product
Example: substrate starch, enzyme = amylase (saliva),
product = maltose (sugar)
Chemical digestion
Amylase in mouth
Enzymes in the
stomach
Most chemical digestion happens in small intestine
Bile made in liver to break down fat
Pancreas makes digestive juices which contain enzymes