What are accessory organs of our digestive system?
1 Answer
Accessory organs are those that provide mechanical and chemical assistance in the process of digestion, the main organs are those where digestion actually occurs.
Explanation:
If you think of the digestive tract for what it is, it's a hollow tube that starts at the mouth and ends at the anus. It becomes not only rather amusing to think about, but it also helps to discern what is classed as a 'main organ', and what is classed as an 'accessory organ'.
First, we put food into our mouth where it is chewed and manipulated into manageable portions with our teeth and tongue, and also begins to get broken down by enzymes in our saliva; produced in the salivary glands . Here, the teeth, tongue and salivary glands are acting as accessories to digestion.
The food is then swallowed, where it travels down through the oesophagus before entering the stomach. These are both main organs. Whilst in the stomach, gastric juices break down the food and it is thoroughly churned up; it's worth noting that the stomach absorbs very few of the nutrients from food.
Once the stomach has done its work, the food is released into the small intestine, one of the main digestive organs, which is divided into three main parts. The first portion, the duodenum receives the food, and the liver/gall-bladder and pancreas act as accessory organs by secreting a range of enzymes directly into the duodenum via a series of ducts so that food can be further digested and broken down.
When this has been achieved, the waste begins to move into the jejunum, the second part of the small intestine, where nutrients are absorbed from the digested slurry. From there, it moves into the last portion of the small intestine, ileum, where any remaining nutrients are removed from the waste before it passes into the final main organ, the large intestine. Almost all nutrition has been absorbed by this point, so the primary purpose of the large intestine is to reabsorb as much of the water as it can from the waste.
The first portion of the large intestine is known as the caecum, and it is to this that the appendix protrudes. From there, it moves upwards via the ascending colon, until it reaches a bend that transitions into the transverse colon; which moves the waste across the abdomen before it hits the next bend, where the it becomes the descending colon. From here the now solid matter moves through the sigmoid colon, and into the rectum where it is free to be expelled as faeces, or poop.
To summarize this process:
The accessory organs are teeth, tongue, salivary glands, the pancreas and the liver/gall-bladder.
The main organs are the mouth, oesophagus, stomach, small intestine (duodenum, jejunum and ileum), and the large intestine (caecum, ascending colon, transverse colon, descending colon, sigmoid colon and rectum), and anus.
