Saturday, April 30, 2011

Objective 60 & 61: Pancreatic juices and chemical forms

Objective 60: Describe enzymatic and bicarbonate content of pancreatic juices
Objective 61: State the chemical forms in which the major food classes are absorbed

Reading up on these two topics was a lot easier than I had originally thought. For some reason, I thought that the pancreatic juices were going to be this complicated mix of enzymes and electrolytes. I also believed that the chemical forms of the food classes were going to have a very long process to being absorbed. Well, I was in for a pleasant shock. I was able to located the information in the text book and lecture outlines, and they both did a great job in helping me understand the two. Pancreatic juice consists primarily of water, electrolytes (mainly bicarbonate), and enzymes (amylase, lipases, nucleases). The acinar cells produce the enzyme-rich component of pancreatic juice. Along with the lecture outline slides, I also referred to chapter 22 page 775 to help me understand the make up of the juice.





I copied this chart from chapter 22 lecture outline, but it can also be found on page 785. It really does a great job in outlining the chemical forms that each type of food gets broken down into. It then tells you the path of absorption that these chemicals forms travel within the body. I don't know how I would have figured out this objective without this chart. Its extremely detailed, and informative and it really made that light bulb go off for me. So what I learned is that carbohydrates are broken down into oligosaccharides and disaccharides; protein is broken down into amino acids; fats are broken down into monoglycerides, glycerol and fatty acids; and nucleic acids are broken down into pentose sugars, N-containing bases, and phosphate ions. After the major food classes are broken down into their chemical forms, it is from there that they are absorbed into different parts of the body. The last column of the chart describes in detail where they are shipped off too. Isn't the digestive system spectacular?






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