Disorders Of Digestion And Nutrition – Treatment for Curing it Fast and Effectively

Your body needs a regular supply of nutrients to grow, to replace worn-out tissue, and to supply energy for the thousands of chemical reactions occurring in your body all the time. These nutrients are extracted from the food you eat as it passes through the digestive system. This system consists of the digestive tract, which is essentially a tube running from the mouth to the anus, and the digestive glands, including the liver and pancreas. The tract and glands work together as a system, to take in food and break it down so that the nutrients in it can be absorbed into the bloodstream.

The first part of the tract is the mouth, where the teeth tear and chew the food into small pieces and mix it with saliva. This functions as a lubricant, and also contains an enzyme, or digestive juice, that breaks down starch.

The tongue moves the food around the mouth as it is chewed, and then forms it into a ball called a bolus for swallowing. Few people appreciate the importance of the tongue in eating. Most people think of it only in its role in speech. If you are one of these people, imagine yourself trying to chew and swallow a mouthful of food without having the aid of your tongue.

The second section of the tract is the esophagus, or gullet. When you swallow, food slips down this muscular tube and through a ring of muscles that relaxes to let it through into the third section of the tract, the stomach. Muscles in the stomach wall pummel the food into a pulp as digestive juices, manufactured in the stomach wall, start to break the food chemically into yet smaller pieces. The half-digested food then passes through another ring of muscles and along a short tube, the duodenum, which is the first part of the small intestine. In the small intestine, further breakdown of food requires help from some other organs of the body.

Just beneath your liver lies the gallbladder, a pearshaped sac about 9 cm long. Your gallbladder stores and concentrates an enzyme called bile, which is produced by the liver and trickles into the gallbladder, along with other substances, through a network of tiny tubes. Your gallbladder releases the bile, when it is needed, into your small intestine through an opening that
is called the bile duct. The bile helps digest fats. Your pancreas releases other digestive juices besides the bile, through a duct that joins the bile duct just before it enters your small intestine.

The food is pushed along the intestine by waves of contraction of the muscles in its wall. As this is happening, enzymes and other chemicals reduce the food to smaller and smaller pieces that can seep through the wall of the small intestine and be absorbed into the bloodstream.

Once in the blood, the nutrients are transported to all parts of the body. These nutrients ultimately end up afloat in the liquid that surrounds each cell in your body. The cells “eat” the nutrients as they need them, pulling them inside their cell membranes through a number of simple but effective mechanisms. Once inside the cell, the nu­trients are sorted and broken down still further. Finally some nutrients are used to provide energy and others are used to make new tissues and other biological substances such as the enzymes.

The next-to-Iast section of the tract is the large intes­tine. Here, water is absorbed into your body from the undigested and indigestible remains of food. What is left becomes semi-solid waste. Finally, the waste is expelled as bowel movements at convenient intervals through the last part of the tract, the anus.

Most disorders of the digestive tract affect only one section. Such disorders are grouped together, along with a general description of what that particular part of the tract looks like and how it works. Some disorders affect two or more sections of the tract, and these are also grouped together. Finally there is a short group of articles describ­ing disorders of nutrition. These are problems related to the amount or type of food you eat, or the ability of your digestive system to absorb certain chemicals in the food.

Some nutritional disorders are rare, inherited diseases that require that you eat a special diet for the rest of your life. Others can affect anybody and may be extremely widespread in the general population. Obesity is a par­ticularly good example of such a disorder. It is covered at length in this section along with other problems related to nutrition and metabolism.