Illustration of pancreas, liver and gallbladder

Pancreas, liver and gallbladder

In your duodenum, digestion continues as chyme from the stomach mixes with a variety of digestive juices from your pancreas, liver and gallbladder:

  • Pancreas. The pancreas produces digestive enzymes that help break down proteins, carbohydrates and fats. It also produces the hormones insulin and glucagon, which help regulate the level of sugar (glucose) in your blood.
  • Liver. The liver performs more than 500 functions, including storing nutrients, filtering and processing chemicals in food, and producing bile, a solution that helps digest fats and eliminate waste products.
  • Gallbladder. The gallbladder stores and concentrates bile. As fatty food enters the upper portion of your small intestine (the duodenum), the gallbladder contracts and forces bile into the small intestine through the common bile duct.

 

Illustration of small intestine

Small intestine

When bile and pancreatic digestive juices mix with other juices secreted by the wall of your small intestine, digestion shifts into high gear. What was once apple pie is propelled into the second portion of your small intestine, the jejunum. Here it's further broken down into smaller molecules of nutrients that can be absorbed. Then it slides into the final and longest portion of your small intestine — the ileum — where virtually all of the remaining nutrients are absorbed through the lining of the ileum's wall.

What remains of the food when it reaches the end of the ileum is a combination of water, electrolytes — such as sodium and chloride — and waste products, such as plant fiber and dead cells shed from the lining of your digestive tract.

 

 

By: Mayo Clinic