Question

What are the functions of the liver and pancreas in the human digestive system ?

Answer 1

Functions of liver:

• Liver secretes bile which is a greenish yellow liquid made in the liver which is normally stored in the gall bladder.
• Bile is alkaline, and contains salts which help to emulsify or break the fats (or lipids) present in the food.
• Thus, bile performs two functions :

1. Makes the acidic food coming from the stomach alkaline so that pancreatic enzymes can act on it.
2. Bile salts break the fats present in the food into small globules making it easy for the enzymes to act and digest them.

Functions of pancreas:

• Pancreas secretes pancreatic juice which contains digestive enzymes like pancreatic amylase, trypsin and lipase.
• The enzyme amylase breaks down the starch, the enzyme trypsin digests the proteins and the enzyme lipase breaks down the emulsified fats.