human intestine?

Question

what makes the human intestines to work and why is your food all soupy when it enters them and becomes crap when it leaves them ?

Answer 1

Wow! You picked a rather complicated question. Let's see what I can do...

Each part of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract works differently. Most often the GI tract is broken down into the upper GI tract = mouth, esophagus, stomach and small intestine; and the lower GI tract = large intestine (colon), rectum and anus. Seeings how you asked about the intestines I'll limit things to this topic.

The human intestines "work" through a complex dance involving mechanical and chemical processes.

Mechanical process: The main mechanical process is peristalsis. Again, the intricacies of the process are...well, intricate. Briefly, peristalsis is the way the intestines push our food along, no matter if we're laying down, standing up, or even up in space. It's a coordinated muscular contraction that results in a sort of milking action pushing the food along. It's all automatic (autonomic is the word) and it is stimulated and controlled by several different things. These range from the food that's coming down the chute, to hormones that the intestine make, to messages from our brains and several things in between.

Stop the peristalsis and things get very bad very quick. Nausea, vomiting, overgrowth of bacteria, dogs/cats sleeping together...it's bad.

The chemical side of things is even more complex than the mechanical.

As the food progresses through the gut it stimulates the production and excretion/secretion of several chemicals and hormones - which in turn stimulate more secretions.
Each day about 9 liters of fluid enters the intestines. Of that, about 2-4 liters (depending on how much you eat) represents ingested fluids. The remainder is digestive fluids and other chemicals that come from the spit glands, stomach juices (hydrochloric acid), liver (bile - over 1.5 liters!), pancreas, and from the intestines themselves. These help turn those chicken nuggets you had for dinner into it's basic fats, proteins, sugars and vitamins/minerals (though probably not a lot of vitamins from chicken nuggets). Once dissolved into these basic nutrients, the inner lining of the intesine (mucosa) soaks up these nutrients (through EXTREMELY COMPLEX processes) and sends them to different areas of the body where they are further processed for us to use to play basketball or ponder life's meanings or...just store up on our hips and bellies as fat.

What's left from that 9 liters is about 1-2 liters of undigested dietary residue (non-absorbable fiber), cellular debris, a bit of water and a few remaining electrolytes. This gets dumped into the large intestine. The large intestine's main purpose is to salvage what else it can from the "food" that is dumped into it (also known as "chyme"). In the colon, most of the water, potassium and other electrolytes are soaked up, leaving a lump of stuff that progressively gets more firm as it moves through the colon, which continues to absorb the water. Finally in the last parts of the colon - namely the sigmoid colon and rectum, those chicken nuggets, fries, milk shake, corn on the cob and everything else you ate that day become a lump of stuff most affectionately known as a turd (crap). The rectum squeezes, the anus relaxes, and the turd drops into the toilet.

That's the down and dirty of it. Hope that answers your question.

Answer 2

because the intestine is lined with cells that take out of the food, the things the body can use and water is one of the main things it can use so a lot of water is removed making the material in the intestine gradually less soupy as it progresses

vitamins, minerals, proteins, and caloric material are also removed by the intestinal cells and sent via the blood to where they can be used

other parts of the body also send waste from their operation of doing what they do (beating heart, thinking brain, all makes some waste) through the blood to the intestine where the wastes are dumped

it is actually more complicated than this and there is some serious participation by other internal organs (the liver does some filtering etc) but in the end, what makes it out the back end of the digestive track is mostly inerts and wastes

Answer 3

Most of your vitamins, minerals, proteins and other essential nutrients are absorbed through your intestines (via the capillaries that surround it). Water is also absorbed (esp in the large intestine), so this is why is goes in soupy and exits more like a solid. Essentially, your body absorbs all the stuff it needs, and leaves the garbage/what's not needed.

Answer 4

I can answer the second part; it becomes a solid, because your intestines extract the water. That's why the longer you wait to go to the bathroom, the harder it gets.

Answer 5

Peristalsis is the muscle action in your intestines that causes the food to move along.

Answer 6

I agree with Debster92s answer, than they name that garbage George W. than elect it president.