Nutrition+Final+Product

Nutrition Final Product

Describe the life process of nutrition. What has to happen, and why? Nutrition is concerned with obtaining and processing food. There are two types of nutrition: Autotrophs and Heterotrophs Autotrophs, such as green plants, make their own food from simple (inorganic) materials. They carry out food by photosynthesis. Heterotrophs carry out food by Ingesting: taking food in, digesting: breaking down food,and eliminating unprocessed waste. Nutrients come from food, and food is energy; life thrives through energy. In heterotrophs, many organs within the body cooperate to process nutrients, including the stomach, liver, intestines, and esophagus.

Explain how nutrition depends on other life processes to function. Provide three specific examples. The digestive system works with other life processes, or systems of the body, in various ways including ingesting, digesting, and absorbing nutrients that are used by all body cells. The digestive system and respiratory systems both transport materials through the blood. The nervous system can influence activity in the digestive system. Muscle movement is an example: the medulla, located inside the brain stem, controls involuntary muscle movement (i.e. digestion). The circulatory system moves oxygen and glucose (nutrient absorbed through digestion) around the body so cells can do work. It also moves wastes from digestion so they can be disposed by the body.

Explain how organisms (unicellular organisms, plants and animals) accomplish the process of nutrition. Provide a specific example organism for each category. ● Unicellular organisms: Such as bacteria, yeasts, fungi, certain algae and protozoa make up a large part of living organisms. These organisms eat through a process called chemotaxis. The process involves movement of the cell according to its chemical needs in the environment in order to obtain nutrients. Chemotaxis is a kind of taxis, in which bodily cells, bacteria, and other single-cell or multicellular organisms are dependant on certain chemicals in their environment for movement. This is important for bacteria to find food (for example, glucose) by swimming towards the highest concentration of food molecules, or to flee from poisons (for example, phenol). ● Plants: Plants are autotrophs that use carbon from the carbon-fixation reactions of photosynthesis as well as hydrogen and oxygen from water. Plants have essential elements (if they are absent they limit growth) such as potassium and sulphur that they obtain from the soil. Absorption of these essential elements takes place within the roots. Peas are an example, for they use nutrients within the soil--that could have been organically or inorganically fertilized--to remain healthy. ● Animals have evolved different types of digestive systems break down the different types of food they consume. The simplest example of digestion intracellular digestion, which takes place in a gastrovascular cavity with only one opening. Most animals with soft bodies use this type of digestion, including flatworms, coral, jelly fish, and sea anemones. The gastrovascular cavities of these organisms contain one open which serves as both a "mouth" and an "anus". Invertebrates like earthworms have alimentary canals .The alimentary canal is used for different digestive functions and consists of one tube with a mouth at one end and an anus at the other. Food is broken down in their digestive tract (extracellular digestion), rather than inside their individual cells (intracellular digestion).Eventually food goes through the intestine and nutrients are absorbed. Material that the organism cannot digest is eliminated through the anus. ( https://www.boundless.com/biology/animal-nutrition-and-the-digestive-system/digestive-systems/invertebrate-digestive-systems/)

Describe three nutritional adaptations in different lineages of multicellular animals (not mammals). For each adaptation, describe how nutrition is accomplished, explain one benefit of the adaptation, and one “tradeoff” that has resulted from the adaptation. Many biologist think of the jellyfish’s digestive system as incomplete. Jellyfish have only a single cavity, the coelenteron, to use as the jellyfish’s stomach and intestine. Food that makes it into the jellyfish’s coelenteron is broken down by digestive enzymes produced by cells lining the inner body cavity. These cells help absorb and direct nutrients around the jellyfish body. Jellies also have only one opening; it is used as both a mouth and an anus. The benefit of this process is its simplicity, it works well for the jellyfish, but it isn’t complex enough to allow for other nutrients to be gathered and used. Goldfish do not have stomachs, meaning food moves through the goldfish system faster than it does in animals with a stomach because there is no space for large amounts of food to be stored. Food first enters the goldfish system by the mouth. The goldfish opens its mouth to create suction, drawing food items along with water, into its mouth, and the water is expelled through the gills. Food then enters the pharynx, located at the very back of the mouth (jellyfish do not have pharynx, or two openings). There are taste buds in the pharynx, along with teeth (called pharyngeal teeth), which grind against a hard chewing surface to break the food items down into small pieces that can pass through the narrow intestines.The intestinal bulb in a goldfish’s digestive system is to provide temporary storage of food items and to absorb lipids from the food items as they pass through the system. Goldfish have the adaptation of an intestine, the caudal intestine, that absorbs proteins from the food items as they pass through and out the anus. The “tradeoff” here is that goldfish must use more energy to process nutrients. Chickens have very efficient digestive systems. Food is taken in with the beak, used for pecking feed in crumble or pellet form, small grains, grass or insects. From the esophagus food moves to the crop, an expandable storage compartment located at the base of the chicken’s neck, where it can remain for up to 12 hours. The crop is similar to the intestinal bulb of the goldfish, as they both provide temporary storage for food. The gizzard is why chickens do not need teeth; for it’s a muscular part of the stomach and uses small rocks or sand to grind food into smaller particles. Chickens have the complexity of two intestines, which the goldfish only had one, and the jellyfish had none. The small intestine, where nutrients are absorbed, and the large intestine, which absorbs water and dries out indigestible foods. Chickens also have two openings. The adaptation here is the gizzard, replaces the need for teeth, and easily grinds up more food (more variety to eat) and more of it. The “tradeoff” is the amount of energy it requires to run a more complex system, partly due to the size of the animal and what it feeds on. [] []

The dependency of the digestive system on the other systems of the body. All body systems work together within the body, our bodies depend on the feedback loops created by this intersystem cooperation. The digestive system is in charge of giving the body nutrients by extracting the needed proteins, fats, and vitamins from the various foods the organism eats. The digestive system, or the components and enzymes that make it up change from animal to animal based on the diet of the specific organism, however the process of nutrition stays the same. This process includes six steps: Ingestion Digestion Absorption Assimilation and Elimination. How do the other systems fit into this process? Well the Skeletal system, charged with the protection of the body protects the various processes of nutrition while they are occurring. The Muscular system pushes the food down into the stomach of the organism, where the food is eventually digested, by contracting. The Circulatory system delivers the nutrients the body extracted from the foods it digested to the cells and brings CO2, and byproduct of nutrition, back to the lungs where it is expelled from the body and taken up by the plants, the Urinary system gets rid of wastes from nutrition as well.

Examples of negative feedback loops within the digestive system. A negative feedback loop tends to allow a system to be self regulating.If you would like the comparison think of it as a repressible operon, whereas a positive feedback loop would be more like an inducer operon. As stated in the answer in the previous question the body depends on feedback loops to function. Feedback loops occur in every part of the body; the digestive system, and even in keeping homeostasis. When you get cold many people begin to shiver. However when you shiver you are contracting your muscles in an effort to produce more heat because of the energy being used, your body is moving to warm up. Well the body produces heat by the muscle contractions and warms up, this, if you will, would be an example (a rather poor one) of a negative feedback loop, or a self regulating loop. An example within the digestive system would be in the body's regulation of the stomach pH, in which the parietal cells in the stomach secrete hydrochloric acid in order the create the optimal pH for the pepsin enzyme. The process occurs when the low pH of the stomach (usually 1.8-3.5) inhibits the G cells of the stomach to begin Gastrin Secretion which lowers the acid secreted by the stomach. For a more detailed description see the URL below. http://courses.washington.edu/conj/bess/acid/acidreg.html

Two diseases of the digestive system. Just as any other body system, the digestive system is often plagued with diseases and syndromes. One such syndrome is the Algille syndrome. This is a autosomal dominant syndrome therefore the offspring only needs one parent to be infected with it in order to have have a chance of infection themselves. The syndrome occurs through either inheritance by one of the parents or by infection. The syndrome reduces the amount of bile ducts or Hepatic Ducts which lead bile and waste away from the liver. The reduced ducts in the liver can lead to liver failure because of the bile build up. Treatment includes medicine to increase the flow of bile away from the liver, but any other treatment is simply to treat the symptoms, which include Jaundice (discoloration of bile), Pruritus (build up of bilirubin in the blood creating itching), and malabsorption of nutrients. Another disease is a rather popular one known as Celiac Disease. Celiac disease occurs when the villi of the small intestine become eroded because of the ingestion of gluten (found in wheat barley and rye). This disease can lead to malnutrition because the villi find it difficult to absorb nutrients when eroded. The symptoms include fatigue, vomiting abdominal pain, and weight loss. The most common treatment for this disease becoming popular with the average teenage girl and the "fad" of the century is a gluten free die, so the villi of the small intestine stop their erosion caused by the gluten. Patrick Hamann

The Microvillus is located in the mucosa layer of the small intestine. They are referred to as the fingers of the body because they stick out from the wall and grab various nutrients that they sense via various chemical responses. Inside the villi there is a network of blood vessels and lymphatic vessels that are responsible for taking up the nutrition. The villi are wrapped in vesicles which are responsible for picking up nutrients that pass by them and carry them to various organelles throughout the body. Microvilli can also aide in the travel of white blood cells, though that has little to do with the absorption of nutrients and more with the immune system. An example of digestion helped along by the microvillus is the digestion and absorption of proteins. After being broken down in the stomach with the use of enzymes (highly acidic) the broken down protein travels into the small intestine. With pancreatic juice in the small intestine helps break proteins down into amino acids, which means they can be easily absorbed into the body from there. The amino acids are absorbed in the hollow of the small intestine. From there, the amino acids are carried out to help build cells ( bones, hair, ect...). As seen in the picture below the microvillus is part of the small intestine wall, which is where food is broken down and digested. The villus sticks out of the wall and is there to catch the food as it passes, more specifically catch micro particles on the microvillus itself. The outside is covered in a plasma membrane, this enclose microfilaments and cytoplasm. The capillary (one cell thick) inside the villus is where the food is absorbed. From there nutrients are broken down further by a digestive enzyme or are absorbed into the cells as previously described.

Nutrient transport is done throughout the circulatory system. Nutrients are carried in vacuoles through the blood stream. The blood stream carries nutrients to the respiratory system or to the organelles in the body. To get nutrients to organelles blood vessels carry them throughout the body, which is how they get to the cells. Plasma, is responsible for carrying most nutrients to the body. The blood is pumped out of the aortic valve, through the aorta into the blood stream. Blood flows thanks to blood pressure that keeps the blood moving. The blood then passes through the capillaries, which are one cell thick and very small. This allows nutrients to flow through them, and into the fluid surrounding cells, from there the cells absorb the nutrients and use them. Another kind of nutrient transport is oxygen transport, a vital substance need for survival. Red blood cells, specifically hemoglobin, are responsible for transporting the O2 throughout the body. Oxygen depends on the traveling blood that starts the heart, goes to the lungs, and then goes back to the heart. The second time around, is when the blood is oxygenated and then distributed throughout the body. Blood is pumped through the right ventricle of heart, and then to to the pulmonary artery that leads to the lungs. At the lungs, the exchange of O2 and CO2 takes place, the oxygenated blood flows through pulmonary veins and reenters the heart by the left ventricle. At this point the blood is its recognizable red color and is ready to be distributed throughout the body. As with the other nutrients, this blood flows out the aorta and to the body, though this time it is the hemoglobin that carries the nutrients not the plasma. Nutrient blood flow is a very specific function linked to the respiratory, digestive, and circulatory systems. As seen in the below diagrams, the whole process is interlinked and depends upon many parts to maintain homeostasis. Nutrients go through the digestive system, and those are then used by every other system in the body. This is achieved by the use of the respiratory and circulatory systems that are responsible for the distribution of those nutrients. The Second diagram shows that to maintain homeostasis all systems are needed. The body required are constant input of energy, because to maintain this homeostasis, they are always using energy, let alone the energy used in the cells.