Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ

by Giulia Enders

Breathing out happens without any expenditure of energy at all.

two nervous systems working tirelessly in tandem to dispose of our waste as discreetly and hygienically as possible.

sophistication of our sphincters.

Each of the two sphincters looks after the interests of a different nervous system. The outer muscle is a faithful servant of our consciousness.

sphincter ani internus.

It is only interested in making sure everything is okay inside us.

First, it allows a small “taster” through. The space between the internal and external sphincter muscles is home to a large number of sensor cells.

They analyze the product delivered to them, test it to find out whether it is solid or gaseous, and send the resulting information up to the brain.

brain takes just a matter of seconds to make an initial assessment of the situation and send a message back to the sphincter:

how important to us is our inner world, and what compromises should we make to get by in the external world?

If communication between the two sphincters breaks down completely, constipation can result.

Biofeedback therapy is offered by some gastroenterologists or gastroenterology departments. It teaches the two sphincters to overcome their estrangement and get to know each other again. A machine is used to measure how efficiently the internal and external sphincters are working together. If messages from one to the other get through, the patient is rewarded with a sound or light signal.

In a squatting position, the subjects took an average of 50 seconds and reported a feeling of full, satisfactory bowel emptying. The average time when seated was 130 seconds and the resulting feeling was deemed to be not quite so satisfactory.

closure mechanism of our gut is designed in such a way that it cannot open the hatch completely when we are seated. There is a muscle that encircles the gut like a lasso

and it pulls the gut in one direction, creating a ...

means our feces hit a corner.

Squatting has been the natural defecation position for humans since time immemorial. The modern sitting toilet has existed only since indoor sanitation became common in the late eighteenth century.

Hemorrhoids, digestive diseases like diverticulitis, and even constipation are common only in countries where people generally sit on some kind of chair to pass their stool.

Doctors believe that straining too much or too often on the toilet can also seriously increase the risk of

varicose veins, a stroke, or defecation syncope—fainting on the toilet.

fold of skin connecting your tongue to the floor of your mouth. These four little nubs supply your mouth with saliva.

OUR STOMACH SITS much higher in our abdomen than we think. It begins just below the left nipple and ends below the bottom of the ribcage on the right.

Alcohol can multiply the number of gas-producing bacteria by a factor of up to a thousand.

some bacteria feed on alcohol

When we take a drink of water, the liquid can flow straight down the shorter, right-hand side of the stomach to end up at the entrance to the small intestine. Food, on the other hand, plops against the larger side of the stomach. Our digestive pouch cunningly separates the substances it still needs to work on to break them down, from the fluids that it can wave straight on through to the next digestive station.

THE SMALL INTESTINE meanders about in our abdominal cavity, twisting and turning for a distance of between 10 and 20 feet (3 and 6 meters).

Most people do not realize that only the final three feet or so (about the last meter) of our large intestine has anything to do with feces—the preceding sections of our intestinal tract are surprisingly clean (and largely smell-free, incidentally).

the surface area of our digestive system is about one hundred times greater than the area of our skin.

we enlarge ourselves as much as possible in order to reduce anything from outside to the smallest size we can, until it is so tiny that our body can absorb it and it eventually becomes a part of us.

By preferring cooked food, the body outsources the first part of the digestive process.

What about raw diets?

As soon as we eat something, the liver and pancreas begin to produce these juices and deliver them to the papilla. These juices contain the same agents as the laundry detergent and dish soap you can buy from any supermarket: digestive enzymes and fat solvents.

All the small intestine’s blood vessels eventually come together and carry the blood to the liver, where the nutrients are screened for harmful substances and toxins.

Any dangerous substances can be destroyed here before the blood passes

into the main circulato...

The nutrient-rich blood then flows from the liver directly to the heart. There, it receives a powerful push and is pumped to ...

absorbed and then “burned” along with oxygen. That releases energy, which the cell uses to stay alive, with heat and tiny amounts of water created as byproducts. This happens inside so many cells at the same time that the heat produced keeps our body at a constant temperature of 97 to 99 degrees Fahrenheit (36 to 37 degrees Celsius).

break the apple down into its constituent molecules and metabolize them for energy.

We then use the energy released to keep us alive.

It leaves only good germs alive and attacks anything it sees as dangerous, and this also means a healthy appendix acts as a storehouse of all the best, most helpful bacteria. This was discovered by American researchers Randal Bollinger and William Parker in 2007.

That’s crazy!! Super recent to find this out.

The careful cooperation of the large intestine and its flora also provides us with an extra helping of energy-rich fatty acids, vitamin K, vitamin

B12, thiamine (vitamin B1), and riboflavin (vitamin B2).

the saltiness of our feces always remains the same.

the treasures absorbed by the large intestine are transported first to the liver for checking, before entering the main blood system.

The final few inches (or centimeters) of the large

intestine, however, do not send their blood to the detoxifying liver; blood from their vessels goes straight i...

nothing more is absorbed in t...

everything useful has already b...

excep...

medical suppo...

in this final stage of breakdown, our digestive enzymes work like tiny pairs of scissors. They snip away at our food until it shares a lowest common denominator with our cells.