The Fate of the Food Proteins in the Human Body
Overview
This paper traces the digestive pathway of protein nutrients through the human gastrointestinal tract, using fish as an example protein source. It explains how proteins are broken down into amino acids through enzymatic action in the mouth, stomach, and small intestines, and subsequently absorbed and processed by the body.
What this essay covers
- Introduction to nutrients and the gastrointestinal tract structure
- Protein digestion process from mouth through stomach and small intestines
- Amino acid absorption and hepatic metabolism, with urea conversion and renal excretion
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The Fate of the Food Proteins in the Human Body
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The Fate of the Food Proteins in the Human Body
Nutrients are typically food compounds that provide the body with energy and are classified into six types: fats (Lipids), proteins, vitamins, minerals, water, and carbohydrates. The gastrointestinal tract is the hollow tube running from mouth to anus, and it is a field for nutrients absorption to the body. Firstly, protein nutrients are denatured to amino acids during digestion. This paper will use fish as the source protein nutrients and show their path through the gastrointestinal tract. The process starts at the mouth; food is chewed and broken down into pieces; after the fish is broken into pieces, saliva helps the transportation through the esophagus (Goodman, 2010).
The next destination is the stomach, where the food pieces are mixed with pepsin to enable protein breakdown. The primary objective of pepsin is to break down the proteins into smaller fragments that can be absorbed. Notably, protein breakage takes some time since it is made of a globular structure. The fish fragments (in the form of proteins) are then pushed to the small intestines, where they are mixed with pancreas enzymes. In this stage, the fragments are further broken down by the use of trypsin. As the process continues, they are all broken into amino acids, and through muscle contraction, they (amino acids) are pushed to the absorption chambers (Goodman, 2010).