Essay --

Hello everyone! I am thrilled to announce that I will once again be miniaturized along with my submarine and take you on another Fantastic Voyage inside the human body. In case you have forgotten the details of our last journey, my sub and I will be shrunken down to be 8 microns long. This time I will be swallowed by Fred, a 55 year old man, while he enjoys a hamburger, French fries, and root beer. As I pilot my way through his body, I will be describing the process of digestion and what major structures I see and come across. Can you imagine being part of someone’s meal? Neither can I, yet here I am being chewed and mixed with a juicy burger by Fred’s teeth. As Fred enjoys his meal, the first part of digestion is happening in his oral cavity. Fred’s burger is a mixture of carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins. As he chews and moves his food around with the help of his tongue, I can see his saliva coming from different angles and mixing with his food. There are three pairs of salivary glands, the parotids, submandibulars, and sublinguals. They secrete most (about 1L) of the saliva produced each day in an adult. (Thibodeau & Patton, 2008, pg397) Saliva contains mucus and a digestive enzyme called salivary amylase. As you can see here, the process of chewing combined with this mucus is allowing the food to break down into a small bolus. After this process I am now mixed up with the bolus and with the help of Fred’s tongue, I have began moving down into the pharynx and then down t o this muscular tube called the esophagus. The esophagus is a stretchy pipe, about 25 centimeters that carries food and liquids from the throat to the stomach for digestion after it has been chewed and chemically softened in the mouth. (InnerBody, 2013) ... ...nce: Thibodeau, G., Patton, K. (2008). Structure and Function of the Body (13th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Mosby Elsevier Publishing. InnerBody, Digestive System. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.innerbody.com/image/digeov.html KidsHealth (1995). Your Digestive System, On the way down. Retrieved from http://kidshealth.org/kid/htbw/digestive_system.html# Inner Body, Superior Mesenteric Artery. (1999). Retrieved from http://www.innerbody.com/image_dige08/card25.html Coffman, M. A. (n.d.). The Absorption of Food by the Human Body | Healthy Eating | SF Gate. Retrieved from http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/absorption-food-human-body-4100.html Oza, N., & Cooper, D. (2011, May 18). How Does the Human Body Maintain Homeostasis? How Chemicals and Organs Work Together to Keep the Body in Balance. Retrieved from http://www.brighthub.com/science/medical/articles/111342.aspx