Digestive System Facts:
The liver is the larg
est internal
organ, which perfo
rms over
500 functions
Your stomach incr
eases up to
twenty times its or
iginal size
after eating
RNEY
U
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Our salivary glands
produce
around 1.5 litres of
saliva each
4
day
Small intestine
Your small intestine isn’t that small at all – in fact an adult’s small
intestine would be around 6.7 metres long! This long tube is squashed
up underneath your stomach. This is where your food gets broken
down even further so your body can have all of the vitamins, fats,
minerals, proteins and carbohydrates from your food. The pancreas,
liver and gallbladder all help along the way. Each of those three organs
send special juices to the small intestine to help digest the food and
ensure the nutrients are absorbed. Each organ produces juice for
different reasons – the pancreas makes juice that helps the body
digest protein and fats, bile from the liver helps absorb fat into the
bloodstream and the gallbladder stores bile until the body needs it.
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Liver
Now the blood filled with all of the nutrients and
goodness from your food heads to the liver. The
liver filters out all of the harmful substances
and waste (sometimes turning this waste into
more bile). The liver also decides how much of
the nutrients are going to the body straight
away and how much needs to be stored.
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6
Large Intestine
Your large intestine is thicker in width than your small intestine
and it is almost the last stop for your food. What is now left
is just waste as the nutrients have mostly been removed.
This needs to be passed through your body and removed –
which is why we go to the toilet! It passes through your colon,
where your body has its last chance to absorb any water and
minerals, and then it moves along, getting harder as the water
is removed, creating solid poop! The solid waste ends up at
your rectum, where it waits until you go to the bathroom.
FUSE
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