Question

Explain the process of digestion of carbohydrate in buccal cavity and small intestine.

Answer 1

Buccal cavity: It is an oral cavity where the ingestion of food happens. The food is chewed and mixed with saliva forming a bolus. The saliva having the salivary amylase acts upon the starch and forms maltose and dextrin.

Small intestine: It is a highly coiled organ having three different regions and lined with micro finger-like structures on the inner side. The chyme moves into the small intestine for the final stage of digestion.

The pathway of Carbohydrate digestion:

1. Saliva gets mixed with the food having starch a form of carbohydrate and forms a bolus as we chew the food in our mouths. This helps in the lubrication of food and easy passage of the chewed food through the oesophagus to reach the stomach for further digestion.
2. Saliva also contains an enzyme known as salivary amylase which is known to break down the starch or complex carbohydrates in the food to simple sugars such as maltose and dextrin.
3. All that food in the form of bolus travels to the stomach where the bolus is converted into chyme and that reaches the small intestine where the pancreas releases pancreatic amylase that breakdown the starch further.
4. The maltose formed as a result of salivary amylase and pancreatic amylase is then broken down into 2 glucose molecules by maltase which is the simplest form.