1st entry : What is digestion ?

Alright, this shall be my first post.

As you all know, any journal entry can't do without an introduction about what you are going to do. Thus, i shall introduce to you, my topic for today.

DIGESTION

Simple alphabets joined together to form this 9 letter word, "Digestion".
It might be simple and short, but some might still ask what it is.
That opened the topic question for my first entry, What is Digestion ?

In simple term, digestion is the mechanical(physical) and chemical breaking down of food into smaller or simpler components. These components which have been digested can be absorbed by the bloodstream.

Digestion is a form of catabolism.

Of course, you all will ask, " now, what is catabolism? "

Catabolism is the set of metabolic pathways, it breaks down molecules into smaller units and release the energy. Examples would be polysaccharides, lipids, nucleic acids and proteins. They are broken down into smaller units like monosaccharides, fatty acids, nucleotides and amino acids respectively.

For digestion to occur, we need to have a Digestive System in our bodies.
Our digestive system consist of many part. I shall only go into the mouth for today. I will elaborate on the rest on other days.

The mouth

The mouth is the part where digestion begins at. Without the mouth, i do not think digestion could proceed any further. The mouth could be broken up into a few components. They are the teeth, tongue and the salivary glands. The teeth helps to chew our food, which breaks the large complex food into smaller pieces. At the tongue, the chewed up food will be rolled into soft balls with the help of the salivary gland, which creates the saliva needed to soften the food. After being chewed, rolled and soften, the bolus(chewed up and soften food) is finally able to continue its journey into our stomach!


Picture of our mouth:
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As food could not possibly juz get into our stomach right after being chewed and soften...
Our body also have an organ called Oesophagus. I will talk about it on my next entry.



References:
http://www.blogaholics.ca/wp/uploads/illu_mouth.jpg
http://hes.ucfsd.org/gclaypo/digestive_system.html#What%20is%20Digestion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catabolism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digestion