In the chemical transformation of human food, the digestive glands play a major role. Namely, their secretion. This process is strictly coordinated. In the gastrointestinal tract, food is exposed to various digestive glands. Due to the entry of pancreatic enzymes into the small intestine, the proper absorption of nutrients and the normal digestion process occur. Enzymes necessary for the breakdown of fat play an important role in this whole scheme.
Reactions and Cleavage
Digestive enzymes have a narrowly targeted task of splitting complex substances that enter the gastrointestinal tract with food. These substances are broken down into simple substances that the body can easily absorb. Enzymes or enzymes that break down fat play a special role in the mechanism of food processing (there are three types). They are produced by the salivary glands and the stomach, in which enzymes break down a fairly large amount of organic matter. These substances include fats, proteins, carbohydrates. As a result of exposure to such enzymes, the body qualitatively assimilates the incoming food. Enzymes are needed for an accelerated reaction. Each type of enzyme is suitable for a specific reaction by acting on the corresponding type of bond.
Assimilation
For better absorption of fats in the body, gastric juice containing lipase works. This fat-breaking enzyme produces pancreas. Carbohydrates are split due to amylase. After decay, they are rapidly absorbed and enter the bloodstream. Amylase of saliva, maltase, and lactase also contribute to cleavage. Proteins are cleaved thanks to proteases, which are still involved in the normalization of the microflora of the gastrointestinal tract. These include pepsin, chymosin, trypsin, erepsin and pancreatic carboxypeptidase.
What is the name of the main enzyme that breaks down fat in the human body?
Lipase is an enzyme whose main task is to dissolve, fractionate and digest fats in the human digestive tract. The fats entering the intestines are not able to be absorbed into the blood. For absorption, they must be broken down to fatty acids and glycerol. Lipase also helps in this process. If there is a case where the enzyme that breaks down fat (lipase) is lowered, it is necessary to carefully examine the person for oncology.
Pancreatic lipase in the form of an inactive proenzyme proenzyme is excreted into the duodenum. Prolipase is activated by bile acids and colipase, another enzyme from pancreatic juice. Lingual lipase is produced in infants due to the oral glands. She is involved in the digestion of breast milk.
Hepatic lipase is secreted into the blood, where it binds to the vascular walls of the liver. Most of the fats from food are broken down in the small intestine due to pancreatic lipase.
Knowing which enzyme breaks down fats and what the body does not specifically cope with, doctors can prescribe the necessary treatment.
The chemical nature of almost all enzymes is protein. The pancreas is simultaneously an organ of the digestive and endocrine systems. The pancreas itself is actively involved in the digestion process, and the main gastric enzyme is pepsin.
How do pancreatic enzymes break down fat into simple substances?
Amylase breaks down starch into oligosaccharides. Further, the oligosaccharides break down to glucose under the influence of other digestive enzymes. Glucose is absorbed into the blood. For the human body, it is a source of energy.
All human organs and tissues are built from proteins. The pancreas, which activates enzymes only after they enter the lumen of the small intestine, is no exception. With violations of the normal functioning of this body, pancreatitis occurs. This is a fairly common disease. A disease in which there is no enzyme that breaks down fats is called pancreatic insufficiency: exocrine or intrasecretory.
Failure problems
Exocrine insufficiency reduces the production of digestive enzymes. In this case, a person cannot consume food in large volumes, since the function of triglyceride breakdown is impaired. In such patients, after taking fatty foods, symptoms of nausea, heaviness, and abdominal pain occur.
With intracecretory insufficiency, the hormone insulin is not produced, which helps to absorb glucose. There is a very serious disease called diabetes. Another name is sugar diabetes. This name is associated with an increase in urine excretion by the body, as a result of which it loses water and a person feels constant thirst. Carbohydrates hardly come from the blood into the cells and therefore are practically not used for the energy needs of the body. Blood glucose increases sharply, and it begins to be excreted through the urine. As a result of such processes, the use of fats and proteins for energy purposes is greatly increasing, and products of incomplete oxidation accumulate in the body. Ultimately, blood acidity also rises, which can even lead to a diabetic coma. In this case, the patient has respiratory distress, up to loss of consciousness and death.
This example clearly shows how important the enzymes that break down fats in the human body are, so that all organs work smoothly.
Glucagon
If any problems arise, you must definitely solve them, help the body with the help of various treatment methods and medications.
Glucagon has the opposite effect of insulin. This hormone affects the breakdown of glycogen in the liver and the conversion of fats into carbohydrates, thereby leading to an increase in the concentration of glucose in the blood. And the hormone somatostatin inhibits the secretion of glucagon.
Self-medication
In medicine, enzymes that break down fats in the human body can be obtained using drugs. There are many of them - from the most famous brands to little-known and less expensive, but equally effective. The main thing is not to self-medicate. After all, only a doctor, using the necessary diagnostic methods, can choose the right drug to normalize the work of the gastrointestinal tract.
However, often we only help the body with enzymes. The hardest thing is getting it to work correctly. Especially if the person is already elderly. It only at first glance it seems that I bought the right pills - and the problem is solved. In fact, this is not so at all. The human body is a perfect mechanism, which nevertheless ages and wears out. If a person wants him to serve him as long as possible, it is necessary to support him, to diagnose and treat him in time.
Of course, having read and found out which enzyme breaks down fats in the process of human digestion, you can go to the pharmacy and ask the pharmacist to recommend a drug with the right composition. But this can only be done in exceptional cases, when for some good reason it is not possible to visit a doctor or invite him to your home. You must understand that you can make a lot of mistakes and the symptoms in different diseases can be similar. And in order to make a correct diagnosis, you need medical help. Self-medication can seriously harm.
Digestion in the stomach
Gastric juice contains pepsin, hydrochloric acid and lipase. Pepsin acts only in an acidic environment and breaks down proteins into peptides. Lipase in the gastric juice breaks down fat only emulsified (milk). The fat-breaking enzyme becomes active only in the alkaline environment of the small intestine. It comes with the composition of the food semi-liquid slurry pushed by the contracting smooth muscles of the stomach. It is pushed into the duodenum in separate portions. Some small amount of substances is absorbed in the stomach (sugar, dissolved salt, alcohol, pharmaceuticals). The digestive process itself mainly ends in the small intestine.
The bile, intestinal and pancreatic juices enter the food advanced in the duodenum. Food comes from the stomach to the lower sections at different speeds. Fatty is delayed, and milk passes quickly.
Lipase
Pancreatic juice is an alkaline liquid that has no color and contains trypsin and other enzymes that break down peptides into amino acids. Amylase, lactase and maltase convert carbohydrates into glucose, fructose and lactose. Lipase is an enzyme that breaks down fats to fatty acids and glycerol. The time of digestion and the release of juice depends on the type and quality of food.
The small intestine performs parietal and abdominal digestion. After mechanical and enzymatic treatment, the cleavage products are absorbed into the blood and lymph. This is a complex physiological process, which is carried out by the villi of the small intestine and directed exactly in one direction, the villi from the intestine.
Suction
Amino acids, vitamins, glucose, mineral salts in the composition of an aqueous solution are absorbed into the capillary blood of the villi. Glycerin and fatty acids do not dissolve and cannot be absorbed by the villi. They pass into the epithelial cells, where fat molecules that enter the lymph are formed. Having passed the barrier of lymph nodes, they enter the bloodstream.
Bile plays a very important role in the absorption of fats. Fatty acids, combined with bile and alkalis, are saponified. Thus, soaps (soluble salts of fatty acids) are formed that easily pass through the walls of the villi. The glands in the large intestine primarily secrete mucus. The large intestine absorbs water up to 4 liters per day. There is a very large number of bacteria involved in the breakdown of fiber and the synthesis of vitamins B and K.