HOW THE STOMACH WORKS

How The stomach works

How the Stomach works

Introduction

The stomach is the unit of digestion, with a saclike appearance (like a pear-bag) and located between the gullet (esophagus) and the intestines.

Functions

The organ's made out of elastic material, thereby being able to change shape and size according to the body position and food storage.

Food enters the body through the gullet after mixing with saliva in the mouth, passing through the cardiac sphincter, which is the pipeline between the stomach and the gullet. Once the food enters the stomach, gastric juices, which are fluids present in the stomach, initiate the process of digestion and breaking down the food. Some substances, such as alcohol, are absorbed along the muscle lining of the stomach.

Sections

The stomach's divided into four major divisions: Cardia (where the food coming from the gullet dump in the stomach), Fundus (designed by the upper curvature of the organ), Body or Corpus (the actual organ) and finally Pylorus (which is the bottom part of the organ that facilitatesthe process of pouring contents into the small intestine.).

Blood Supply

The lesser curvature of the stomach is provided by the right gastric artery inferiorly, and the left gastric artery superiorly, which furthermore provision the cardiac region. The larger curvature is provided by the right gastroepiploic artery inferiorly and the left gastroepiploic artery superiorly. The Fundus of the stomach and furthermore the top portion of the larger curvature, are provided by the short gastric artery.

Control of Secretion and Motility

Five key components make up for the stable movement and flow of chemicals in the stomach both by the autonomic nervous system and by the various digestive system hormones. First is Gastrin which causes escalation in the HCI section from the parietal cells, and pepsinogen from cell chief cells in the stomach. Gastrin is released by G-cells in the stomach in response to swelling of the antrum and digestive products.

Next, we have Chloesystokinin (CCK, which greatly affects the gall bladder in the body, causing it to tighten, but simultaneously reduces gastric passage and helps grow the flow of pancreatic juice which is alkaline.

Moving on, we have Secretin, generated in the small intestine, affects the pancreas and diminish acid release at the same time.

Fourth we have Gastric Inhibitory Peptide (GIP) that aid in gastric, acid and motility reduction.

Finally, we have Enterglucogan that help decrease both gastric acid and motility.

Other than Gastrin, these hormones all proceed to turn off the stomach action. This is in response to food products in the liver and gall bladder, which haven't been absorbed. The stomach needs only to move food into the small intestine when available. In case of unavailability, the stomach acts as storage for food to stay.

Stomach as Nutrition Sensor

The stomach can 'taste' sodium glutamate with its glutamate receptors and this information is passed to the lateral hypothalamus and limbic system in the brain as palatability or 'delicious' signal through the vagus nerve. The organ can single-handedly sense tongue and oral taste receptors such as glucose, carbohydrates, proteins and ...