Questions tagged [digestive-system]
Organs that play a role in digestion and/or absorption of nutrients: breaking down of food into smaller components that can be absorbed and used as for sources of energy, cellular/tissue building blocks, or cofactors for vital biochemical reactions.
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How suddenly does lactose-intolerance onset?
How quickly can the loss of lactose tolerance onset in an adult?
Such as being able to process lactose normally to having notice symptoms associated with the inability to process lactose.
I am not ...
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Energetics and Products of Pepsin/HCl Protein Digestion
What are the energetics of protein digestion during which the enzyme pepsin is "activated" (whatever that means) by HCl? I've looked and been unable to find anything like a chemical equation that ...
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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 ...
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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.
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Why are diabetic people often overweight?
I was looking at diabetes the other day, and I noticed something strange. Lower amounts of lipase are a symptom of diabetes, as is overweightness. However, since lipase is the enzyme that breaks down ...
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By what mechanism does coeliac disease cause excess fat in the feces?
Wikipedia states that “Severe coeliac disease leads to the characteristic symptoms of pale, loose and greasy stool (steatorrhoea)”. However thumbing through the causes and the pathophysiology it did ...
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Why do antibiotics have a special importance when taking lactulose?
“Before taking lactulose, tell your doctor and pharmacist what prescription and nonprescription medications you are taking, especially antacids, antibiotics including neomycin (Mycifradin), and other ...
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E. coli, risk of infection?
There has been a warning about E. coli contaminated water in South Florida. Now I'm wondering are there empirical data or historic cases which show a correlation between E.coli levels in tap water and ...
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Would non-human carnivores be able to survive on farmed foods?
Certain creatures that are considered carnivores are non-obligate carnivores and are technically omnivores (such as wolves/dogs). How different is the potential digestive ability of these species ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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)?
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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