What happen if our small intestine is straight?

1 Answer
Jun 20, 2018

See below.

Explanation:

If our small intestine wasn't highly convoluted and instead straight, then it would have no way of fitting inside the body.

The small intestine (when stretched out) measures to be 20 feet long! I dunno about you, but my abdomen is nowhere near that long.

Thus, the small intestine would not fit in the abdomen; hypothetically if it needed to be straight, then the body would have to sacrifice a lot of the small intestine in order for it to fit in the abdomen. This would have a detrimental effect on the digestive system, since only a tiny portion of the main organ for the absorption of nutrients would remain (aka we would all starve).

http://www.innerbody.com/image_digeov/dige10-new3.html