Tag: digestive system - organs

Carbohydrate digestion begins in the mouth or buccal cavity. The salivary glands in the mouth secrete saliva, which helps to moisten the food. The food is then chewed while the salivary glands also release the enzyme salivary amylase, which begins the process of breaking down the carbohydrate food.

There are two kinds of digestion: mechanical and chemical. In mechanical digestion, food particles are physically broken down into smaller pieces. It begins in the mouth where the food is chewed. 

An organ that helps with digestion but is not part of the digestive tract. The accessory digestive organs are the tongue, salivary glands, pancreas, liver, and gallbladder. Chemical digestion in the small intestine relies on the activities of three accessory digestive organs the liver, pancreas, and gallbladder. The digestive role of the liver is to produce bile and export it to the duodenum. The gallbladder primarily stores, concentrates, and releases bile. The pancreas produces pancreatic juice, which contains digestive enzymes and bicarbonate ions, and delivers it to the duodenum.

Adenoids, also called Pharyngeal tonsils, a mass of lymphatic tissue, similar to the tonsils, that is attached to the back wall of the nasal pharynx (i.e., the upper part of the throat opening into the nasal cavity proper). An individual fold of such nasopharyngeal lymphatic tissue is called an adenoid.