Case 9 – Learning Objective 5

Describe the physiological mechanism of motility, secretion, digestion and absorption

(I adjusted the LO to deal with what Dr. Weight dealt with in her lectures)

Motility
 Motility is the muscular contractions that mix and move forward the entire
contents of the digestive tract.
 The smooth muscle in the walls of the digestive tract maintain a constant low
level of contraction (tone) which is important in maintaining a steady pressure of
the contents of the digestive tract as well as in preventing its walls from
remaining permanently stretched following distension.
 As well as tone there are 2 other types of digestive motility – propulsive
movements and mixing movements.
 Propulsive movements push the contents through the digestive tract at varying
speeds depending on the different regions of the gut.
 Mixing movements mix the food with the digestive juices and facilitate absorption
by exposing all portions of the intestinal contents to the absorbing surfaces of the
digestive tract.
 Motility of the smooth muscle is controlled by involuntary mechanisms.

Secretion
 A number of digestive juices are secreted into the digestive tract lumen by
exocrine glands located along the route.
 Each digestive secretion consists of water, electrolytes and specific organic
constituents like enzymes, bile salts or mucus.
 Secretion requires energy for active transport of some of the raw materials into
the cell and for synthesis of secretory products by the endoplasmic reticulum.
 Normally the digestive secretions are reabsorbed back into the blood.

Digestion
 Digestion is the biochemical breakdown of the structurally complex foodstuffs of
the diet into smaller, absorbable units by the enzymes produced within the
digestive system.
 Carbohydrate digestion - simplest form is monosaccharides such as glucose,
fructose and galactose which is what complex
carbohydrates must be broken down into to be
absorbed.
- polysaccharides (starch and glycogen) are acted on by
amylase enzymes and broken down to disaccharides.
- these disaccharides are further broken down into
monosaccharides by the appropriate enzymes.
e.g. sucrose is broken down by sucrase, lactose is
broken down by lactase.
 Protein digestion - proteins are degraded primarily into their constituent amino
acids as well as a few small polypeptides which can then be
absorbed by the gut.
- proteins are broken down by enzymes such as pepsin and
trypsin.
 Fat digestion - most dietary fat is in the form of triglycerides, which are made up
of glycerol and 3 fatty acids molecules.
- during digestion 2 of the fatty acid molecules are split off, leaving
 a monoglyceride (a glycerol molecule with 1 fatty acid attached)
- these monoglycerides and fatty acids can then be absorbed.

Absorption
 Takes place in the small intestine, mainly in the duodenum and jejunum.
 The small intestine has many adaptations to aid absorption
 The inner surface of the small intestine has circular folds that are visible to the
naked eye and increase the surface area threefold.
 Villi project from the folded surface and increase the surface area by another
tenfold.
 Each villi is covered by epithelial cells with the occasional mucus cell.
 Microvilli project of the villi increasing the surface area by another 20-fold.

Reference:
Sherwood