Exercise 39

To provide the body with the nutrients, water, and electrolytes essential for health.

Digestion: ingested food first be broken down physically (by chewing or churning) and chemically (by enzymatic hydrolysis) into its smaller diffusible molecules.

Absorption: the digested end produceds can pass through the epithelial cells lining the tract into the blood for distribution to the body cells.

Approximately 9 meter long in a cadaver, but is considerably shorter in a living person due to a muscle tone.

Alimentary canal: mouth, pharynx, esophagus, stomach, and small and large intestine.

Accessory structure: teeth, salivary glands, gallbladder, liver, and pancreas.

Mucosa: surface epithelium (simple columnar), a lamina propria (aerolar connective on which the epithelial layer rests), and a muscularis mucosae (a scant layer of smooth muscle fibers that enable local movements of the mucosa). The function is to secrete (enzymes, mucus, hormones, etc), absorb digested foodstuffs, and protection (against bacterial invasion).

Submucosa: dense connective tissue containing blood and lymphatic vessels, scattered lymphoid follicles, and nerve fibers. Its intrinsic nerve supply is called the submucosal plexus. Its major functions are nutrition and protection.

Muscular externa: a bilayer of smooth muscle with the inner layer running circularly and the outer layer running longitudinally. Another important intrinsic nerve plexus, the myenteric plexus. By controlling the smooth muscle of the muscularis, this plexus is the major regulator of GI motility.

Serosa: aka visceral peritoneum. It consists of a thin layer of areolar connective tissue. In areas outside the abdominoplevic cavity, the serosa is replaced by an adventitia, a layer of coarse fibrous connective tissue that binds the organ to surrounding tissues. The serosa reduces friction as te mobile digestive system organs work and slide across one another and the cavity walls. The adventitia anchors and protectors the surrounded organ.

To produce saliva.

To produce a serous, watery secretion.

To produce a mixed serous and mucous secretion.

To secrete a saliva that is predominantly mucous in character.

To play an active role in the process of digestion through the production of bile.

To store and concentrate bile, a yellow-brown digestive liquid produced by the liver.

To make exocrine cells that produce enzymes to help with the digestion of food.

To carry out the physical and chemical digestion of food.

To be responsible for absorbing most of the nutrients found within your food.

Duodenum: to continue the digestive process that the stomach has started.

Jejunum: to absorb the majority of nutrients.

Ileum: responsible for the absorption of B12 and the final processing of carbohydrates and proteins.

To reabsorb water and mineral ions such as sodium and chloride

To absorb fluids and salts that remain after completion of intestinal digestion.

To act as a temporary storage site for fecal matter before it is eliminated from the body through the anal canal.

To be responsible for purifying the blood as well as storing blood cells.

the serous membrane that forms the lining of the abdominal cavity - it covers most of the intra-abdominal organs

a layer of body tissue that attaches organs to the body.

A portion of the peritoneum, the membrane encapsulating most of the organs within the abdominal cavity.

To be responsible for fat deposition and contains amounts of adipose tissue that can vary from person to person.

To serve as the first line of defense in the immune system.

To increase the amount of surface area available for the absorption of nutrients.

To to increase the amount of surface area available for the absorption of nutrients

to separate solid/ liquid contents