Healthy Digestion: Good Health Begins Here

Healthy digestion leads to overall good health. If this system is functioning well then you will greatly increase your odds of having great health.

To understand how important human digestion is let's look at a basic overview of it's function and design.

The Process of Healthy Digestion

Your GI tract is a 30 foot tube that extends from your mouth all the way to your anus. It has many functions including the breakdown of food, absorption of nutrients, and elimination of toxins and wastes.

In your mouth is where starch begins to be broken down. Even just the sight, smell or thought of food can begin the process of salivation. This explains why babies get hungry at the smell of food. In the saliva, is found enzymes that are capable of disassembling starch into smaller sugar molecules.

From here, the resulting bolus moves down the esophagus to the stomach. Here, enzymes and HCL (hydrochloric acid) mix with the contents producing chyme or partially digested food.

Then, the chyme travels to the first part of the small intestine, the duodenum. This is where bile, produced in the liver and stored in the gall bladder, is released. Fats, protein and starch are further broken down and released to the duodenum of the small intestine.

Nutrients are absorbed in the jejunum and ileum of the small intestine and go to the liver.

The muscular colon is made up of 3 parts: the ascending, trans and descending colon. It is capable of very strong contractions (peristalsis) which result in expulsion to the next section. Water and electrolytes are absorbed here and the undigested material is stored and eventually eliminated.

The 3 part design of the colon supports humans eating 3 meals per day. Each meal moves the previous meal to the next section in the colon. Babies have bowel movements after every meal. So should you!

What you eat determines the ease and length of time required for digestion. So, as an example, fish takes only 4 hours whereas red meat takes about 12 hours. Foods that are high in fat and low in fiber require the most time.

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