Like our skin, our digestive tract, from mouth to anus, is a barrier to our outside world. To put it simply, you can imagine that the entire digestive tract snakes through our body like a water hose – sometimes thicker, sometimes thinner. However, our hose is not permanently hermetically sealed, but occasionally allows things to pass through the wall – into us. Our body can control this independently, without our voluntary consent. Depending on needs and external circumstances, the supply of the essential materials can be secured. Lifestyle, psychoemotional factors, specific diseases or genetic components can influence the intestinal barrier function. Stress is a crucial factor that promotes the opening of the barrier. If it is in an open state too often, this is technically referred to as hyperpermeability. If the intestinal barrier opens too often or is partially destroyed, a leaky gut can occur and have far-reaching consequences.
Why do I think the intestines are so central to our health and well-being? In the next articles we will take a closer look at this fascinating organ.
Let’s go on a journey with the cheese bread today – into our dark interior:
Our food begins its journey in the mouth. There the food is chopped up, salivated and finally transported further down the esophagus into the stomach. But some components are already absorbed into our interior via the oral mucosa. That’s why our digestion begins in the mouth. This is ensured, for example, by the alpha-amylase enzymes contained in saliva, which “pre-digest” carbohydrates. Anyone who has ever chewed a slice of bread for a good minute will remember that a sweetish taste develops over time. This is the case when complex carbohydrates are broken down into smaller (sugar) molecules.
The different sections of the digestive tract have different Ph levels and that’s a good thing. Because the different steps need their special environment so that the biochemical reactions can take place. However, the statement “I am angry today” is very generalized. The stomach receives the food pulp, through its gastric juice, with a fairly acidic environment (low PH value). This is important, among other things, so that pathogens are killed.
On the one hand, the stomach serves as a temporary storage facility so that everything is not transported further at the same time. And on the other hand, he is responsible for shredding and breaking up structural building blocks. The food pulp now reaches the duodenum (first part of the small intestine) in portions and is supplemented by the digestive juices from the pancreas and gallbladder, which contain digestive enzymes. These are important for breaking down food into an aqueous solution containing energy-rich substances. It is predominantly found in the small intestine
Absorption of nutrients into the bloodstream takes place. For this we need an area that is a hundred times larger than our skin. With all the folds and villi in the intestinal wall, an estimated surface area of up to 400-500 square meters is created over a length of 7 meters. The intestine is therefore the largest organ in the human body. This area must be well defended and controlled. We have two central “testing points” for this purpose. First, all substances in the intestinal lumen, actually outside the body, are perceived via nerve endings and then examined by the immune system for toxic and harmful substances.
“over half of the immune defense takes place in the small and large intestine”
After passing through the interior of the body, the blood flows from all the individual villi with its absorbed nutrients towards the liver. This is where the second important check and detoxification takes place before it is allowed to enter our bloodstream.
Only the fat content of the cheese bread is partially absorbed differently. Because fat is not water-soluble, it cannot be absorbed directly into the bloodstream. Fat is absorbed (with the exception of short-chain fatty acids) via the lymphatic system. Through chemical processes, the fats are arranged in a “transportable” manner, so that the fat molecules are absorbed via the lymphatic vessels behind the intestinal wall and transported towards the heart with the lymph fluid. There is a big difference here. This means that the absorbed fat bypasses the second test point and is pumped directly into the entire body by the heart. That doesn’t mean that the liver doesn’t still examine these fats for toxins later on. It is only important for us to understand: Every fat – from cheap deep fryer fat to high-quality olive oil – everything comes into direct contact with our hearts and vessels. And so it is already clear what effect we have on the body through our everyday diet.
So how does cheese bread come to our muscle cells as an energy supplier?
In order to transport the individual building blocks to their destination in the correct way, a few mechanisms are required to control the transport. While amino acids and glucose are water-soluble substances, water-insoluble fats require a “taxi” that guides them through the bloodstream. If these didn’t exist, we would quickly have a major problem with blood flow in the vascular system. While amino acids are often converted, broken down or used to produce other molecules in the liver, glucose serves as a direct energy building block. In order to transport these from the bloodstream into the muscle cell, a “door opener” is required – insulin. It is the key to the “cell lock” and thus enables the glucose molecules to be relocated into the interior of the cell. They also transport fats into the cell through their taxis. Now comes the last major step towards releasing energy: introducing the energy carriers into the mitochondrion. There, the fatty acids and glucose molecules are converted into energy-rich ATP through several biochemical processes using oxygen supply. In the end, ATP is the product that all our cells need as a fuel. The two “waste products” water and carbon dioxide are also created (for better understanding, I have only described aerobic energy production here in a very simplified form.).
However, we don’t just get energy from cheese bread – the body also uses other strategies to generate energy sources during periods of fasting. When it comes to these strategies, the following applies again: use it or lose it. We will examine these other mechanisms in another article. Just remember, eating all the time is not a healthy idea either: Why are blood sugar levels an underestimated factor for your health?.
We are not alone in our bodies!
Back to the intestine: After the small intestine, the “rest” is pushed into the large intestine. This is where the majority of our microbiome lives. Whether bacteria, viruses or parasites – our residents have a very diverse appearance. For anyone who has thought until now that we have ourselves completely “under control”, I would like to point out that we have several billion roommates. These have various tasks, including supplying us with self-produced vitamins and producing short-chain fatty acids. More on that in the next blog post and back to the colon.
This is not only a specialist in the removal of our digested food, but also a specialist in the fine regulation of our electrolyte balance. This means that it ensures the correct ratio of water, sodium, potassium and chloride by excreting or reabsorbing them.
A small part of the large intestine is the appendix with its appendix. The appendix helps break down fiber-rich food and serves as a reservoir for colonic bacteria. Its lymphatic tissues are an important part of the immune system. Therefore, the frequent removal of the appendix also reduces our important reservoir for bacteria and immune regulatory cells.
Now the food is at the end of its journey through our body and is released into the open air. And that brings us to the next point:
How should our chair look, smell and shape?
It can take a few days before the trip comes to an end. As a result, we carry our food around with us for quite a while. The stool consistency, shape and smell can give us a lot of information about the digestive situation. The Bristol Stool Scale provides a good indication of this.
And if the smell, the consistency, the appearance is sometimes, occasionally or constantly different? Then this can have many different causes. You will find out about this in the next article.
Here are a few more book recommendations:
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Intestines with charm – G. Enders, 2014
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Children’s book: The Kackwurstfabrik – M. Baseler & A. Van den Brink, 2018
