Osmosis In The Digestive System 3w2w39

In the digestive system, osmosis primarily take place in small and large intestines. Ingested water is absorbed about 90 percent at the small intestine. Meanwhile, the large intestine absorbs most of the remaining water. The process of osmosis is a form of ive transport, where no energy is required. Water diffuses from an area of a lower solutes concentration to an area of higher solutes concentration. Therefore, the absorption of water is depended on the osmotic gradients. Whereby, suitable osmotic pressure gradients are an important factor to assist the net water uptake from the intestines. In the small intestine, the absorption of water into the body begins in the proximal and throughout the walls of small intestine. At the beginning of the digestion, the chime that enters the intestinal tract has a minimal impact on osmotic pressure, due to its large size of molecules. However, the osmotic pressure increases as the molecules breaks down into smaller molecules progressively during digestion. Consequently, this hypertonic fluid will cause the water to enter the small intestine by diffusion. In addition, an increasing of osmotic pressure is also a result from a crypt cells. A cell at the base of a villi located in duodenum and jejunum that function to secrete electrolytes such as, chloride, sodium, and potassium into the small intestine. As a result, higher solutes concentration will draw water into the lumen of small intestine. On the other hand, as some of the electrolytes and the end products of food digestion such as maltose, glucose and amino acids are absorbed into the bloodstream, hypotonic environment insides the small intestine creates an osmotic pressure to decreases relatively to the gradient of solutes concentration thereby, water is reabsorbed back into the body. Furthermore, the primary function of large intestine is to absorb water from the left undigested food and excreted waste material out of the body. The absorption of water from the remaining waste is a process known to transform the liquid chime residue into semisolid faeces. Water absorption occurs at the colon by the same concept osmotic pressure gradient. The pumping of sodium ions into intercellular space inside the cells surrounding the intestinal lining cause the intercellular fluid to be hypertonic thereby, creates an osmotic pressure results water to enter into bloodstream. In spite of the fact that water travels down an osmotic gradient, the diffusion of water can also be against the osmotic gradient due to the pumping of sodium ions in to the intercellular fluid. In consequence, this allows the large intestine to absorbs water despite the blood in capillaries are hypotonic to the fluid to fluid inside the large intestine.