How does digestion affect metabolism?
1 Answer
Digestion affects metabolism mainly in two ways: a) input of energy; b) control of important hormones such as insulin
Explanation:
Digestion, which happens in the gastrointestinal systems, one of the most important components of the digestive system, the second being the correlated organs such as pancreas, is the process by which foodstuff is broken into small-and-important components, such as glucose molecules.
Metabolism is the internal-process that control several important body parameters, such as energy, which implies in macro-states such as body weight. Metabolism exists mainly in two states: catabolism and anabolism.
The proper interplay between metabolism and digestion is important, when that fails, we have metabolic disorders, such as diabetes or food intolerance.
Digestion helps to control the production of hormones such as insulin that has an direct affect in the metabolic states. As an example of insulin, too much means hypoglycemia, too little, hyperglycemia; generally called glycemia. The two aforementioned medical conditions can be problematic in short and long term.
More examples can be found, such as letpin and ghrelin.
