Professor Hallux has a crack at making a new and improved digestive system – The Combustible Compostulater.  There is certainly a lot to chew on, as the Professor learns more about the jobs this important system does.

From your mouth to your bottom, the digestive system is a group of organs that work together to convert food into energy and basic nutrients to feed the entire body.  Professor Hallux and Nurse Nanobot are investigating whether the Combustible Compostulater is better than the real thing, using an online ‘Physiology File‘

LOADING PHYSIOLOGY FILE

Job 1 – The glands of the digestive system make special proteins called enzymes whose job it is to break down food into smaller pieces or building blocks.

Uh oh! Its a fail for Combustible Compostulater.  It doesn’t contain any enzymes, just a lot of smells!

Job 2 – The stomach holds the food, and with the help of bile from the liver, breaks down fats so that nutrients are released.

Whilst the Combustible Compustulator does hold food, it doesn’t have any bile to break down the fats. Another fail!

Job 3 – food is absorbed by the small intestine and water by the large intestine, and the waste that is left is expelled from the body.

Hmmm, the Combustible Compustulator is brilliant at expelling waste, but not much else.

Do you want to know what happens when you eat food?

It all starts in your mouth, where your teeth grind food into small bits and saliva helps make food a little wetter. This all helps you to swallow your food.

Once swallowed, food travels down a tube called the oesophagus – helped along by smooth muscles.

When it arrives in your stomach, acids and enzymes begin the process of digestion.  A bit like a kitchen mixer, food is churned around and is mixed with the acids and enzymes to become a gooey mass. From the stomach, this gooey mass enters the small intestine, where nutrients are absorbed into your body to help you grow and move around.

Whats not absorbed moves down to your large intestine which compresses the waste products, until you’re ready to visit the loo!

Hallux’s fun facts about digestion

• Each person makes between 1 and 3 pints of saliva per day.
• If unravelled, your entire digestive tract is about 30 feet long.
• Even if you were eating while standing on your head, the food would still end up in your stomach because of the muscles that push food down your oesophagus.
• About 1,000,000,000,000,000 bacteria are found in your gastrointestinal tract.
• An average person will eat around 50 tons of food in their lifetime.

Want to find out more about bones? Click here to Professor Hallux builds a Body

Physiology is fundamental! It not only helps us understand the jobs parts of the body have to do and how they do them.  It also means we can understand the effect other things have on bodies.

Join Professor Hallux as he looks at each part to see what fixes he can make to build a better body!

You can hear Hallux’s Physiology Fix-Up weekdays from 5pm on Fun Kids!

Listen back to any episodes you’ve missed below!

Hallux’s Physiology Fix-Up with support from The Physiological Society.

Click here to find out more!