How does mechanical digestion enhance chemical digestion?
1 Answer
Mechanical digestion breaks the food into smaller pieces, so that digestive enzymes have a larger surface area to work on.
Explanation:
Mechanical digestion is the breakdown of food without the aid of chemicals.
Chemical digestion is the action of chemicals in the body to break large food molecules into smaller ones.
In the mouth
Chewing food breaks it into smaller pieces so they can be transported through the esophagus to the stomach.
Chewing also mixes the food particles with saliva, which contains enzymes for breaking down carbohydrates.
In the stomach
(From 2012 Book Archive)
The food travels to the stomach, where the food is mechanically churned by peristalsis (contraction of the stomach walls) and mixed with stomach acid and more digestive enzymes.
In the small intestine
Smooth muscle contractions called segmentation transport the food through the digestive system.
(From BC Open Textbooks)
Segmentation separates the food and then pushes it back together, mixing it with digestive juices and pushing it against the mucosa to be absorbed.
When most of the food has been absorbed, another type of peristalsis moves the remainder further along the small intestine to the large intestine for eventual evacuation.
