Organs playing some role in digestion: the breaking down of food into smaller components that can be up-taken and used as source of energy or stucture.
2
votes
1answer
26 views
By what mechanism does an obstructed bile duct cause excess fat in the stool?
By what mechanism does an obstructed bile duct (for example gallstones) cause steatorrhoea (excess fat in the stool)?
0
votes
1answer
31 views
Digestion system startup?
Is it true that the human digestion system needs a startup in the morning?
Meaning that if u want to lose weight it can be beneficial to eat in the morning instead of skipping that meal?
Also does ...
2
votes
1answer
55 views
Can animals use the nitrogen in chitin to build proteins?
Fungi and insects contain chitin, which is about 6% nitrogen.
Can an animal - like me - make use of this as a nitrogen source to build proteins?
Are there any animals that can do this?
Are there ...
2
votes
0answers
9 views
How is the appropriately-stratified gut microbiome acquired in organisms performing horizontal transmission?
I am studying horizontal transmission of primary symbionts in insect reproduction. This reminded me of an earlier question I had asked, in which I learned that humans analogously acquired their ...
1
vote
1answer
84 views
What is the energy balance of cooking?
If I cook some food, I get apparently several energetic advantages:
thermal : the temperature of the food is closer or superior to the temperature of my body or internal organs, so I do not have to ...
1
vote
0answers
11 views
How compatible are mammal digestive systems?
I'm interested in what kinds of nutrients mammal digestive systems extract from food and would like to know how similar are the outputs of these systems.
For example, if it is possible to ...
0
votes
0answers
40 views
Long term liquid food diet by blending/grinding all quality foods one would normaly eat, not any weight loss or prepared drinks
I want to know what are the effects of not using your teeth to grind foods but preparing it before eating with blending and grinding them into a liquid.
Here I am not talking about any weight loss or ...
5
votes
1answer
53 views
Are there grass or fiber eating birds?
My understanding, that may be wrong, is that cellulose/fibre has little nutritional value to many animals because it's hard to break down thus making consumption inefficient. However, Ruminating ...
4
votes
1answer
68 views
Excretion of small kangaroos while in the pouch
How is the excretion of small kangaroos done when they are in the pouch of their mother, fastened onto her teat? My question is what happens with the products; do they accumulate in the pouch?
2
votes
1answer
33 views
What nutrients can humans absorb in the mouth?
For instance, I realise being able to absorb simple sugars in the mouth is pivotal in the rapid action of oral glucose gel. Thus I was wondering what nutrients in general can be absorbed directly ...
2
votes
1answer
17 views
Colloids in digestion
I am looking for examples of colloids involved in digestion for a cross-curricular (bio-chem-physics) lesson plan. Although I have found references implicating colloids in both lipid and protein ...
3
votes
2answers
164 views
How does HCl does not burn our stomach?
How does the digestive acid (HCl) not burn the surrounding skin of our stomach? It digests majority of raw food we eat but how does it stays safe in our stomach? Also, how does the stomach retains the ...
6
votes
1answer
63 views
Cooking with sawdust
In a book about post-war Japan (Embracing Defeat, Dower) the author mentions a process for making sawdust at least partially edible, so it could be used in recipes in a 1:4 ratio with flour for ...
5
votes
4answers
162 views
Why Do Ruminants Require A Multi-Compartment Stomach To Digest Food?
Cows, camels, sheep, goats, etc being ruminants must chew their food repeatedly by regurgitating their food from their first stomach compartment and chewing their 'cud'. This then finer chewed ...
2
votes
0answers
34 views
Do humans have chemosensors for nutrients or chemicals?
I'm reading about chemoreceptors on Wikipedia, and see that the typical ones are mentioned: taste, smell, co2. I would like to learn more about the other kinds of chemoreceptors that humans may ...
0
votes
0answers
82 views
How does someone die when swallowed by a whale? [closed]
I've been trying to find this out on Google, but so far no convincing answers.
How does someone die when a whale swallows him/her. Is the stomach acid responsible for killing (if yes, which acid and ...
2
votes
2answers
615 views
Does sour food cause sweating?
While eating sour food or candy, I start to sweat if it's sour enough. My body feels much hotter although my actual temperature is the same, my forehead starts sweating a lot and I feel like it just ...
6
votes
2answers
84 views
Do omnivore mammals vary food preferences based on dietary needs?
I'm wandering if mammals that can eat many different kinds of food (omnivores) vary their preference for food not only based on the availability, but also based on dietary needs?
I'm looking at this ...
4
votes
2answers
47 views
Is there a circadian component to hunger?
I'm wondering what produces the feeling of hunger in humans. Checking Wikipedia revealed that leptin and ghrelin are two hormones involved. I've also read that the digestive system produces its own ...
2
votes
2answers
118 views
Do foods with preservatives become less toxic in the gut?
Do foods with preservatives stay digestible for longer in the gut by not rotting as much (producing less toxins)?
2
votes
1answer
61 views
Where are -HCl supplements absorbed in the human digestive system?
I see that quite a lot of drugs and dietary supplements sold in the USA have -HCl(hydrochloride) added to their name. For example pyridoxine hydrochloride for Vitamin B6. I'm interested in knowing ...
9
votes
2answers
114 views
Does human digestive system benefit from eating same kind of food consistently?
Here's the reason why I'm asking: I've heard that it takes some time for pets(cats/dogs) to adjust to a different dry feed, where the new feed has to be mixed with the old one, slowly replacing the ...
-1
votes
1answer
1k views
Ramifications and possibility of a diet consuming exclusively of human semen
Semen is a thick, nutritious liquid, rich in vitamins (such as C, B12), amino acids, lipids, monosaccharides (fructose), et cetera. Can semen's ability to fulfill the needs of human organism provide ...
6
votes
3answers
100 views
What gaseous substances do humans emit?
Other than CO2 and Methane what other gases do humans produce or emit?
For example, does skin decomposition, or aerobic respiration emit any special gases that people don't normally realize or know ...
2
votes
1answer
111 views
Negative feedback in the fructose metabolism in liver
What happens in liver when large amount of fructose is consumed?
I vaguely remember my biochemistry lecturer telling us that the enzymes that process fructose in the liver does not have negative ...
0
votes
2answers
211 views
What part of food gives the blood red color?
Roughly, what I know is, when we eat food it goes into our: Stomach > Small Intestine > Large Intestine > Rectum. So, it just moves through a digestive pipe.
What I don't understand is, what part of ...
2
votes
2answers
107 views
How might I break down bread into glucose in a model of the human digestive system?
I need to make a model of the digestive system. It would be really nice to actually show it in action, such as by breaking down bread into glucose or something similar. Is this feasible with a small ...
5
votes
1answer
136 views
What is an simple way to burn glucose for visible effect?
I want to make a partially working model of the digestive system that could digest complex carbohydrates. My ultimate goal is to be able to cut up some bread, put it into the model, operate it, and ...
10
votes
3answers
98 views
How do baby animals that primarily subsist on cellulose get their initial gut flora?
In the case of mammals like giraffes and koalas, is that bacteria common on the plants they eat so when a baby starts to try to stick something besides its mother's milk in its mouth, it can't digest ...
6
votes
1answer
72 views
Is it the sphincter that flexes when a human pushes a bowel movement?
Of course the sphincter muscle is at the exit point. To use a toothpaste tube analogy, if I want to squeeze out some toothpaste, it does me little to no good to jostle the nozzle; I need to squeeze ...
14
votes
1answer
6k views
Why is coffee a laxative?
How does caffeine (or any additional agents) act as a laxative when ingested? I'm interested in the metabolic/signaling pathway.
8
votes
2answers
261 views
Why do people say that trans fatty acids are bad for your health?
I've heard from several sources that trans FAs are bad for you and their consumption will lead to cardiac problems, and that they are indigestible.
But I also learned from biochemistry that they are ...
8
votes
1answer
645 views
What influences the timing of human bowel movements in the morning?
I'm trying to understand if the timing of human bowel movements in the morning is associated with the circadian rhythm, and can thus be used to make predictions about the circadian rhythm.
What ...
8
votes
1answer
130 views
What are the biochemical processes occurring when food spoils?
Let's assume for a minute that microbes themselves and their direct toxic products (i.e. endotoxins) aren't toxic to humans. Let's also discount any innate immune responses the body mounts against the ...
10
votes
2answers
141 views
Why is the microbial ecosystem of the gut so susceptible to disruption by pathogens?
From all accounts, it seems as if the Escherichia, Enterobacter, etc. that live and thrive in the human gut are pretty well entrenched. I know that these microbial populations are often analyzed as ...
