Oh no! Diseases!

Eating-non-stop.

As human beings, we love to eat something that are delicious and the appearance of food is appealing. However, do you know the not-so-hygiene food that we purchase on the road side hawker stall, or the long-term consumption of food (such as fried food, alcohol, products with high amount of food additives and etc.)  that could bring harm to our body?

It's time to arise your awareness towards these common disease that may occur in our digestive system:-

a) DIARRHEA

b) CONSTIPATION

c) Colorectal cancer

In order to prevent such diseases happen to us, we should be more concern on what we intake, and the nutrients that found in food.
As a smart consumer, we should refer to the food pyramid that clearly stated the dietary guidelines for each category of food.
As wise man saying :"Prevention is better cure." , we should be more health conscious before our body has signals us the "red light"!

Thank you for spending your time in reading our articles, we are appreciating your support, and we hope our articles will bring you extra information and knowledge.

*The gifs above are obtained from Google image.*

Absorb and Transport your nutrients!

Movement of food molecules across gastrointestinal tract (GI) into blood circulatory system is known as absorption. GI tract is folded with surfaces that lined with villi and microvilli which facilitate the absorption process.

After digestion process in the stomach, food molecules, minerals and water will be absorbed in the lumen of small intestine and carried to the rest of the body parts by different transport mechanisms such as

• Active transport
• Simple diffusion
• Osmosis
• Facilitative diffusion. 

First of all, carbohydrates are the major energy fuel which needed by our body in order to sustain daily activity. However, a big bowl of rice that you have consumed, and you must be questioning, how are the carbohydrates in the rice being absorb into our body? In order to solve you question, the answer would be : carbohydrates must be broken down into monosaccharide before it absorbed into small intestine. 

The diagram 1 below shows the specific enzymes that function in breaking down the larger particles into simpler form:-

Diagram 1.

Monosaccharides then move from lumen of small intestine to villi via facililated diffusion(fructose) or active transport (glucose and galactose). The monosaccharides enter the blood circulation through blood capillaries.  The indigestible celluloses and fibers in carbohydrates will be directed to large intestine and removed as faeces.

Secondly, protein is the important nutrients that function to build and repair body tissues. The broke down amino acids are absorbed from the lumen of small intestine into villi via active transport which required ATP and carrier. Then, amino acids will enter to the blood capillaries in the villi and transported by hepatic portal vein to the liver.

Diagram 2 below shows the enzymes that function in breaking down protein:-

Diagram 2.

Next, lipids are also one of the main energy sources for human daily's activity. Bile and bile salts(natural detergent) produced by liver cells (hepatocytes), and they will emulsify lipids in the duodenum. Besides that,  lipase in pancreas breaks down the lipids into fatty acids(long chains and short chains) and monoglycerides.

Diagram 3 shows how the fatty acids are being transported and absorbed by our body.

Diagram 3.

TIRED OF READING SO MUCH THINGS? Don't fed up, relax your eyes for a minute and move your body around ! ;)

Done relaxing? We shall continue for the last two components and we are done for today! :)

Vitamins are the word which we heard the most nowadays. Fruits and vegetables contain of fat and water solube vitamins which provide enormous benefits to our body. The transportation and absorption of fat and water soluble vitamins will be explained in the following diagram:-

Last but not least, water is one of the major component that make up nearly 80% of our body composition.

• Water is absorbed into gastrointestinal tract via osmosis
• Water is absorbed from lumen of intestine to epithelial cells and entered to the blood capillaries
• Water is able to move over intestinal mucosa in both direction

*The gifs and diagrams above are obtained from Google image.*