Digestive Glands

Introduction

Have you ever considered how a person might exist without their digestive system? They can’t, of course! Digestion is crucial since your body requires nutrients from meals and beverages to run correctly and remain fit. Nutrients involve proteins, lipids, carbs, minerals, vitamins, and fluids. Nutrients are cut down into tiny adequate pieces for your body to treat and utilise for nutrition, development, and cell restoration via your digestive tract. Let’s get down to business. You cannot acquire strength directly from the meals you eat. Therefore, the digestive system and glands are just as essential as the rest of your glands.

Digestive Glands

Digestive glands have tubes that empty their substances into the digestive tract. Such glands which have tubes to ooze out their secretions are called exocrine glands. The respiratory system involves an alimentary tract and digestive glands. The salivary glands, liver, pancreas, gastric glands, and intestine nodules are all digestive glands linked with the alimentary tract. All these glands are just as necessary as others. But Among them, the salivary glands, pancreas, and liver are the essential glands.

Each portion of your digestive tract aids in the passage of meals and liquids within the gastrointestinal tract  and the cutting down of food and drink into tiny chunks. Your system will collect and transfer nutrition to where they get required after meals get split down into tiny sufficient pieces. It’s a method that involves all of your glands. The structure and roles of the digestive gland will be discussed in this article.

Structure and Function

Your system requires strength from the meals you eat and the liquids you drink to remain fit and perform correctly. The analysis and functions of our body’s digestive glands are given here.

• Mouth

The teeth rip and ground eaten meal into tiny bits that can get digested: The tongue places and combines meals and further contains sensory nerves for flavour; the palate divides the mouth from the nasal passage, permitting independent passageways for oxygen and meal. By altering the flow of air within the mouth, all of these structures, along the lips, are concerned with the creation of vocalisations.

The mouth is where the digestive system begins. Digestion begins even before you take your first meal. When you see and smell that bowl of ramen or fried chicken, your salivary glands get engaged. 

In our mouth three types of salivary glands pour their secretion which is called saliva. In the saliva, starch digesting enzyme is present which is called salivary amylase. When you first start to eat, you crush your food into shorter bits that are simple to digest. 

The digestion of food in the buccal cavity takes place at pH 6.8 and is called bolus.

Your saliva reacts with the meal, cutting it down into a state that your system takes and utilises. When you swallow, the meal is moved down your throat and into your oesophagus by your tongue.

• Oesophagus

The oesophagus is a tube that attaches the stomach to the throat. The oesophagus is around 8 inches lengthwise and coated with mucosa, a moist pinkish membrane; it remains moist due to the secretion of mucous. The oesophagus gets located in front of the backbone, behind the windpipe and the heart. The oesophagus travels within the diaphragm just before reaching the stomach.

When you swallow, the meal travels from your mouth to the oesophagus. To keep you from suffocating, the epiglottis is a tiny membrane that drapes across your windpipe as you swallow. Peristalsis is a succession of muscular activities that transport food from the oesophagus to the stomach. But first, the lower esophageal sphincter, a ring-like organ at the base of your oesophagus, must soften to allow food to move through. The sphincter then closes, preventing the stomach contents from spilling back into the oesophagus.

Gastric Gland in Stomach

The cardiac gastric ducts get found at the start of the stomach. The middle or main gastric glands get found in the middle of the stomach. And the pyloric glands get found towards the end of the stomach. 

Mucus gets secreted by goblet cells in  both the heart and pyloric part of the stomach. It covers the stomach and shields it from self-digestion by diluting acids and enzymes. Because it produces stomach fluid, the gastric glands are an essential body part. The mucosa layer of stomach has numerous  gastric glands some the major ones are goblet cells which secrete mucus, peptic cells (zymogen or chief cells) which secretes pepsinogen (zymogen i.e. inactive enzyme) and the parietal cells secrete hydrochloric acid.

HCl, pepsin, and mucous are all found in gastric juice. Pepsin aids protein digestion, HCl aids pepsin’s activity and destroys germs. And mucus preserves the stomach’s inner core.

The HCl in gastric juice turns medium acidic and this converts pepsinogen into pepsin (active enzyme).The gastric juice acts on proteins which are converted into proteose and peptones by the action of pepsin enzyme.Mucous protects the inner wall against the action of acid and pepsin.

Partially digested food is called chyme which is acidic in nature.

• Liver

The liver has two distinct parts: a large right lobe and a lesser left lobe. It is generally triangular. The falciform tendon, a ring of tissue that maintains the diaphragm attached, separates the lobes. The liver is a gland that performs a variety of tasks. Because the organ is still getting studied, it’s impossible to offer a specific figure. The liver, however, is classified as part of the digestive system and performs functions such as filtration, muscle growth, and the generation of substances that aid digestion.

The liver serves a variety of activities in the digestive system, but its primary duty is to filter nutrition taken from the small intestine. The liver’s bile is released further into the small intestine, which creates suitable conditions for  the digestion of fats and other food components but it has no enzyme.

Bile juice helps in the emulsification of fats so that these are easily digested in the small intestine. Bile reaches the duodenum of the small intestine through hepato-pancreatic duct.

 The liver acts as a chemical “factory” for your system. It converts the basic materials received by the gut into all of the molecules your body requires to operate. The liver is also responsible for the detoxification of possibly hazardous substances. It degrades and produces a variety of medications that are potentially harmful to your health.

• Pancreas

The pancreas is an extended, tapering organ positioned behind the stomach, across the rear of the abdomen. The cap, or right-hand side of the organ, is the broadest section of the organ and is located in the curvature of the duodenum, the small intestine’s first partition. The pancreas’ tapering left side continues a little higher, known as the body, and finishes towards the spleen, known as the tail.

The pancreas’ exocrine gland secretes enzymes that aid in the digestion of carbs, lipids, proteins, and acids in the duodenum. These  enzymes are dormant as they move down the pancreatic duct and through the bile duct. They become active once they reach the duodenum in alkaline medium. In the duodenum, the Brunner’s glands  produce  bicarbonate rich mucus along with bile salts to counteract stomach acid. 

The pancreas’ endocrine part  produces hormones where  insulin is one such hormone , which is released into the circulation straight. Insulin is the hormone in charge of sugar metabolism in your system. 

Intestinal Glands

In the duodenum the mucosa layer has goblet cells which secrete mucus and various other intestinal glands are present. The submucosa layer has Brunner’s glands which secrete alkaline mucus.

In the duodenum bile juice, pancreatic juice and intestinal juice carry forward digestion of food and maximum digestion occurs in duodenum part only.

Here the digested alkaline food is called chyme. 

Why is digestion important?

Food must get broken down into nutrients for the system to use for strength, development, and repair of tissues. Only simple soluble substances reach the bloodstream or lymph for circulation hence digestion is essential. Circulation helps in the  transport of nutrients to cells throughout the system, meals and drinks must get broken down into smaller nutrition particles. Food and drink components are broken down into carbs, protein, lipids, and nutrients by the body. Because it transports vitamins to your system, the digestive tract plays an essential part in your general health. You’ll be exposed to varied unpleasant symptoms if your digestive system fails to be in the right shape, including stomach discomfort, bloating, reflux, and more. Moreover, the meals you consume may deprive you of sufficient nourishment. It can have a detrimental influence on your health and well-being.

Conclusion

Your digestive system gets built to convert your food into the nourishment you require to live. When that gets accomplished, it neatly wraps your waste material, or stool, for removal the next time you have a bowel activity. Each part of your body contributes an equal amount to it. It is essential to have a healthy digestive system to live a healthy life. You already know what the digestive glands are and what they do since you’ve read this far.