Working Together - The Circulatory and Digestive Systems
Many different systems in the human body work to provide the essentials for living, each responsible for its own activity. However, many of these systems must interact with one another to ensure the body is receiving everything it needs to continue functioning. Two of these systems are the circulation system and the digestive system.
The circulatory system is responsible for the flow of blood throughout the body, and in doing so, ensuring each part of the body obtains the necessities for activity, whereas the digestive system is responsible for the ingestion, break down, absorption, and excretion of nutrients and minerals. Both systems interact to supply nutrients to the different parts of the body.
The transaction begins in the digestive system with the intake of food. This food travel through the mouth, esophagus, stomach, and small intestine, undertaking both chemical and physical digestion, in preparation for absorption into the bloodstream. The ingested nutrients are exposed to chemical and physical digestion in the mouth, where the teeth and saliva break down the food and form a bolus, which is then transported down the esophagus and into the stomach through peristalsis. In the stomach, physical and chemical digestion occur once again through the churning of the food and hydrolysis of substances due to stomach acids and enzymes. Once chime the pulpy acidic fluid which passes from the stomach to the small intestine, consisting of gastric juices and partly digested food is formed in the stomach, the nutrients travel to the small intestine where the villi, lining the inner wall of the organ, absorb the nutrients and transport them into the bloodstream. Villi contain capillary networks, which correlate with the capillaries surrounding the digestive organs, and receive the nutrients and transport them to the hepatic portal system, through the hepatic vein, delivering the nutrient rich blood to the liver. The liver then processes the mineral filled blood and then delivers different nutrients from the liver to supply other tissues of the body in need of nourishment. The circulatory system is responsible for the transportation of this blood, therefore it may be carried to the heart and pumped throughout the body, yet it may be delivered to various tissues and cells before reaching the heart. Platelets, a type of blood cell, specialized for the transportation of nutrients throughout the body, are in charge of the transportation of nutrients throughout the bloodstream, and also for the delivery to the correct body tissue.
Both the digestive system and the circulatory system are vital parts of the bodily systems, and must work together in order to maintain homeostasis in the body and keep it functioning properly.
The Digestive System(left), The Circulatory System (right)
Picture Source: Generationgenius.com
