What Is The Role Of Stomach In Digestion?

The stomach is involved in the second stage of digestion after the chewing (mastication) of food in the mouth. In terms of the digestive system, the stomach is located between the oesophagus and the small intestine.

Chewed up food, scientifically known as bolus, enters the stomach through the oesophagus after being swallowed. The stomach walls release proteases, which are protein digesting enzymes like pepsin, and hydrochloric acid which kills or inhibits any bacteria that was swallowed along with the food. The hydrochloric acid, which is a very strong acid with a pH value of 1, provides the stomach with a pH 2 environment so the proteases can work.

The food, the protease and the acid are churned around in the stomach through contractions of the stomach walls. This process converts the bolus into chyme (partially digested food). The chyme then passes slowly through the pyloric sphincter and into the duodenum, which is where the extraction of nutrients takes place. Depending on the quantity of food that the person has consumed and exactly what they have eaten, the process of turning bolus into chyme can take anywhere between 40 minutes to a few hours to complete.

The stomach is divided into four sections, all of which play an extremely important role in this stage of digestion. The cardia is located at the top of the stomach and is where bolus enters the stomach from the oesophagus after being swallowed. The fundus forms the upper curvature of the stomach and allows for the accumulation of stomach gases that are produced during the digestion process. The corpus or body of the stomach is the main central region where the food, protease and hydrochloric acid and digested together. And finally the pylorus is located in the lower section of the stomach and is responsible for emptying the contents of the stomach into the lower intestine for the third stage of digestion.

Stomach is a thick muscular sac like structure present in the abdominal cavity. It is basically involved in the storage and mixing of food. Food is temporarily stored in it. Glandular cells in stomach secretes gastric juice. The gastric juice contains hydrocloric acid and two other enzymes pepsin and renin. Hydrochloric acid changes the medium of food to acidic which kills the bacteria present in the food. Pepsin acts on protien part of food and break them into peptones. Renin helps to curdle milk in infants. The regular movements of the stomach churn up with the gastric juice, and thus the food is changed into thick fluid called chyme. This chyme is further processed in small intestine.

The proteins degrading enzymes are first activated by the hydrochloric acid so that these proteases are able to function. The hydrochloric acid is also important in that it stimulates hormones production in the stomach, destroys some of the bacteria present in the food past and promotes the uptake of minerals and trace elements into the bloodstream, some of which serve as coenzymes.

The pylorus of the stomach release the stomach contents in portions into the proximal portion of the small intestine, the duodenum (in simple English twelve finger gut), so called because it is about twelve figure breaths in length, as physicians already discovered a few hundred years ago. Nowadays, medicine has become a more exact science and cannot afford to associate itself with such rough estimates.

Many people believe that the stomach is the main site of food processing, but, although very important that is simply not true. The most thorough activities are performed in the duodenum. For this reason it is important that the stomach has already sent signals to the hormones system that work can be expected. This insures that the intestines received enough secretion from the pancreas. Aside from such hormones as insulin and glucagon, the pancreas also provides about a liter and a half of digestive juices for the duodenum everyday.

The stomach is a muscular, hollow, dilated part of the digestion system which functions as an important organ of the digestive tract in some animals, including vertebrates, echinoderms, insects (mid-gut), and molluscs. It is involved in the second phase of digestion, following mastication (chewing).
The stomach is located between the esophagus and the small intestine. It secretes protein-digesting enzymes and strong acids to aid in food digestion, (sent to it via oesophageal peristalsis) through smooth muscular contortions (called segmentation) before sending partially digested food (chyme) to the small intestines.

The stomach stores the food where it is partly digested by stomach enzymes and hydrochloric acid. Also, your stomach is an elastic muscular bag that can stretch to hold the food you eat.