Anatomy and Physiology

Your digestive system and how it works The digestive system is made up of the digestive tracta series of hollow organs joined in a long, twisting tube from the mouth to the anusand other organs that help the body break down and absorb food. Organs that make up the digestive tract are the mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestinealso called the colonrectum, and anus. Inside these hollow organs is a lining called the mucosa. In the mouth, stomach, and small intestine, the mucosa contains tiny glands that produce juices to help digest food. The digestive tract also contains a layer of smooth muscle that helps break down food and move it along the tract. Two solid digestive organs, the liver and the pancreas, produce digestive juices that reach the intestine through small tubes called ducts. The gallbladder stores the livers digestive juices until they are needed in the intestine. Parts of the nervous and circulatory systems also play major roles in the digestive system. Why is digestion important When you eat foodssuch as bread, meat, and vegetablesthey are not in a form that the body can use as nourishment. Food and drink must be changed into smaller molecules of nutrients before they can be absorbed into the blood and carried to cells throughout the body. Digestion is the process by which food and drink are broken down into their smallest parts so the body can use them to build and nourish cells and to provide energy. How is food digested?

Digestion involves mixing food with digestive juices, moving it through the digestive tract, and breaking down large molecules of food into smaller molecules. Digestion begins in the mouth, when you chew and swallow, and is completed in the small intestine. Movement of food though the system The large, hollow organs of the digestive tract contain a layer of muscle that enables their walls to move. The movement of organ walls can propel food and liquid through the system and also can mix the contents within each organ. Food moves from one organ to the next through muscle action called peristalsis. Peristalsis looks like an ocean wave traveling through the muscle. The muscle of the organ contracts to create a narrowing and then propels the narrowed portion slowly down the length of the organ. These waves of narrowing push the food and fluid in front of them through each hollow organ. The first major muscle movement occurs when food or liquid is swallowed. Although you are able to start swallowing by choice, once the swallow begins, it becomes involuntary and proceeds under the control of the nerves. Swallowed food is pushed into the esophagus, which connects the throat above with the stomach below. At the junction of the esophagus and stomach, there is a ringlike muscle, called the lower esophageal sphincter, closing the passage between the two organs. As food approaches the closed sphincter, the sphincter relaxes and allows the food to pass through to the stomach. The stomach has three mechanical tasks. First, it stores the swallowed food and liquid. To do this, the muscle of the upper part of the stomach relaxes to accept large volumes of swallowed material. The second job is to mix up the food, liquid, and digestive juice produced by the stomach. The lower part of the stomach mixes these materials by its muscle action. The third task of the stomach is to empty its contents slowly into the small intestine. Several factors affect emptying of the stomach, including the kind of food and the degree of muscle action of the emptying stomach and the small intestine. Carbohydrates, for example, spend the least amount of time in the stomach, while protein stays in the stomach longer, and fats the longest. As the food dissolves into the juices from the pancreas, liver, and intestine, the contents of the intestine are mixed and pushed forward to allow further digestion. Finally, the digested nutrients are absorbed through the intestinal walls and transported throughout the body. The waste products of this process include undigested parts of the food, known as fiber, and older cells that have been shed

from the mucosa. These materials are pushed into the colon, where they remain until the feces are expelled by a bowel movement.

CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM BLOOD Blood is considered the essence of life because the uncontrolled loss of it can result to death. Blood is a type of connective tissue, consisting of cells and cell fragments surrounded by a liquid matrix which circulates through the heart and blood vessels. The cells and cell fragments are formed elements and the liquid is plasma. Blood makes about 8% of total weight of the body. Functions of Blood Blood, the only liquid connective tissue, has three general functions:
1. Transportation. Blood transports oxygen from the lungs to the cells of the

body and carbon dioxide from the body cells to the lungs for exhalation. It carries nutrients from the gastrointestinal tract to body cells and hormones from endocrine glands to other body cells and hormones from endocrine glands to other body cells. Blood also transports heat and waste products to the lungs, kidneys, and skin for elimination form the body.
2. Regulation. Circulating blood helps maintain homeostasis in all body fluids. Blood helps regulate pH through

buffers. It also helps adjust body temperature through the heat-absorbing and coolant properties of the water in

plasma and its variable rate of flow to the environment. Blood osmotic pressure also influences the water content of cells, mainly through interactions of dissolved ions and proteins.
3. Protection. Blood can clot, which protects against its excessive loss from the cardiovascular system after an injury.

In addition, white blood cells protect against disease by carrying on phagocytosis. Several types of blood proteins, antibodies, such is as unique from one person to another as are skin, bone, and hair.

Components of Blood Whole blood has two components: blood plasma, a watery liquid matrix that contains dissolved substances, and formed elements, which are cells and cell fragments. If a sample of blood is centrifuged (spun) in a small glass tube, the cells sink to the bottom of the tube while the lighter-weight plasma forms a layer on top. Blood is about 45% formed elements and 55% plasma. Normally, more than 99% of the formed elements are red-colored red blood cells (RBCs). Pale colorless white blood cells (WBCs) and platelets occupy less than 1% of total volume. They form a very thin buffy coat layer between the packed RBCs and plasma in centrifuged blood. White Blood Cells (WBCs) In a healthy body, some WBCs, especially lymphocytes, can live for several months or years, but most live only a few days. During a period of infection, phagocytic WBCs may live only a few hours. WBCs are far less numerous than red blood cells, about 5000-10,000 per microLiter of blood. Leukocytosis, an increase in the number of WBCs above 10,000/micrometer, is a normal, protective responsive to stresses such as invading microbes, strenuous exercise, anesthesia, and surgery.

The skin and mucous membranes of the body are continuously exposed to microbes can invade deeper tissues to cause disease. Once pathogens enter the body, the general function of the white blood cells is to combat them by phagocytosis or immune responses. To accomplish these tasks, many WBCs leave the bloodstream and collect at points of pathogen invasion or inflammation. Once granulocytes and monocytes leave the bloodstream to fight injury or infection, they never return to it. Lymphocytes, on the other hand, continually recirculate from blood to interstitial spaces of tissues to lymphatic fluid and organs such as the skin, lungs, lymph nodes, and spleen. WBCs leave the bloodstream by a process termed emigration in which they roll along the endothelium, stick to it, and then squeeze between endothelial cells. The precise signals that stimulate emigration through a particular blood vessel vary for the different types of WBCs. Molecules known as adhesion molecules help WBCs stick to the endothelium. Neutrophils and macrophages are active in phagocytosis; they can ingest bacteria and dispose of dead matter. Several different chemicals released by microbes and inflamed tissues attract phagocytes, a phenomenon called chemotaxis. Among the substances that provide stimuli for chemotaxis are toxins produced by microbes; kinins, which are specialized products of damaged tissues; and some of the colony-stimulating factors. The CSFs also enhance the phagocytic activity of neutrophils and macrophages. Among WBCs, neutrophils respond most quickly to tissue destruction by bacteria. After engulfing a pathogen during phagocytosis, a neutrophil unleashes several chemicals to destroy the pathogen. These chemicals include the enzyme lysozyme, which destroys certain bacteria, and strong oxidants, such as the superoxide anion (O2-), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and the hypochlorite anion (OCI-), which is similar to household bleach. Netrophils also contains defensins, proteins that exhibit a broad range of antibiotic activity against bacteria and fungi. Within a neutrophil, vesicles containing defensins merge with phagosomes containing microbes. Defensins from peptide spears that poke holes in microbe membranes; the resulting loss of cellular contents kills the invader.

Monocytes take longer to reach a site of infection than do neutrophils, but they arrive in larger numbers and destroy more microbes. Upon arrival they enlarge and differentiate into wandering macrophages, which clean up cellular debris and microbes by pahagocytosis after an infection. Eosinophils leave the capillaries and enter tissue fluid. They are believed to release enzymes, such as histaminases, that combat the effects of histamine and other mediators of inflammation in allergic reactions. Eosinophils also phagocytize antigen-antibody complexes and are effective against certain parasitic worms. A high eosinophil count often indicates an allergic condition or a parasitic infection. At sites of inflammation, basophils leave capillaries, enter tissues, and liberate heparin, histamine, and serotonin. These substances intensify the inflammatory reaction and are involved in hypersensitivity (allergic) reactions. Basophils are similar in function to mast cells, connective tissue cells that originate form pluripotent stem cells in red bone marrow. Like basophils, mast cells liberate mediators in inflammation, including heparin, histamine, and proteases. Mast cells are widely dispersed in the body, particularly in connective tissues of the skin and mucous membranes of the respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts. Lymphocytes are the major soldiers in immune system battles. Three main types of lymphocytes are B cells, T cells, and natural killer cells. B cells are particularly effective in destroying bacteria and inactivating their toxins. T cells attack viruses, fungi, transplanted cells, cancer cells and T cells help combat infection and provide protection against some diseases. T cells are also responsible for transfusion reactions, allergies, and rejection of transplanted organs. Natural killer cells attack a wide variety of infectious microbes and certain spontaneously arising tumor cells.

Platelets Beside the immature cell types that develop into erythrocytes and leukocytes, hemopoitic stem cells also differentiate into cells that produce platelets. Under the influence of the hormone thrombopoitien, myeloid stem cells develop into precursor cells called megakaryocyte-colony-forming cells that, in turn, develop into precursor cells called megekaryocytes, huge cells that splinter into 2000 to 3000 fragments. Each fragment, enclosed by a piece of plasma membrane, is a platelet (thrombocyte). Platelets break off from the megakaryocytes in red bone marrow and then enter the blood circulation. Between 150,000 and 400,000 platelets are present in each microLiter of blood. They are diskshaped, 2-4 micrometer in diameter, and have many vesicles but no nucleus.