Liver in Our Body

Pancreas and Liver in our body

Liver

It is the largest gland of the body. It is reddish brown in colour. It has a soft pear-shaped sac called gall bladder. The gall bladder secretes bile juice. Bile is alkaline, and contains the bile pigment. Bile is stored in the gall bladder. It helps to emulsify or break the fats or lipids present in the food.

Functions of Bile

The bile performs the following functions:

(i)It breaks the larger globules of fat into small globules to make the enzyme to act and digest them.

(ii) It prevents putrefaction of food.

(iii) The bile creates a medium for the pancreatic juice to act on food by neutralizing the acidity of the food.

Note: Bile has no enzyme and hence it has no chemical action on food.

Secretion of Intestinal Juice by Liver and Pancreatic Glands

The intestinal juice contains a number of enzymes which complete the digestion process. The complex carbohydrates are converted into glucose, proteins are converted into amino acids and fats are converted into fatty acids and glycerol. All these end products i.e., amino acids, glucose, fatty acids and glycerol are small and water soluble molecules. The complete digestion of food takes place by biological catalysts called anzymes. The intestinal juice includes maltase, invertase, lactase etc.

Peptides-----tryp sin------Amino acids

Sucrose-----Invertase-----Glucose+Fructose

Maltose-----Maltase------Glucose+Glucose

Lactose------Lactase------Glucose+Galactose 

Pancreas

pancreas

It is the second largest gland in our body. It is heterocrine in nature. It is 12-15 cm in length and lies below the stomach. Pancreas secretes a digestive fluid called pancreatic juice. This juice contains digestive enzymes such as trypsin, nucleases pancreatic lipase and pancreatic amylase. The enzyme trypsin digests proteins, the enzyme pancreatic amylase breaks down the starch and the enzyme lipase breaks down the emulsified flats. Pancreas produces two types of hormones namely.

(a) Insulin

(b) Glucagon

Insulin is essential for converting glucose and storing it as glycogen. Glucagon is essential for conversion of glycogen into glucose. An alkaline medium is favourable for the action of pancreatic enzymes.

Starch--------Pancreatic amylase-------Maltose

Fat-------Lipase---------Fatty acids + Glycerol

Proteins----trypsin--------Peptides