Question

2. What is the gastrointestinal system? What does it do?


I can't seem to find the answer to this in my text and would really love if someone could help me out!

Answer 1

gastrointestinal system refers to the system which consists of the stomach and the intestines.proteins are digested in the stomach by pepsin and fats and proteins are further digested in the small intestine by enzymes like tryppsin and lipase.

Answer 2

I think gastrointestinal system refers to the gastric glands present in our stomach + the small intestine.

As we know gastric glands secrete gastric juices HCl mucus and pepsin and renin (in their inactive form).
HCl helps in killing of bacterias softening of food and helps bringing pepsin and renin into their active form. Mucus forms an inner lining in the stomach to protect it from HCl. Pepsin helps in brraking down of proteins.


In small intestine digestive enzymes are received from pancreas. But before that it receives bile juice from liver. Bile juice makes the partially digested food slightly alkaline as the digestive juices of pancreas functions only in alkaline medium. Secondly bile juice also helps in break down of larger fat gobules into smaller ones. After that small intestine receives enzymes from pancreas which includes trypsin lipase and amaylase.

Amylase helps in digestion of carbohydrates. Lipase digests fats and trysin digests proteins. Hence the digestion process is conpleted here.