Diarrhea and Constipation
There are a lot of pathologies and pathogens that could affect the normal flow of food and absorption in the digestive tract. Two common digestive problems, very common that it could be acquired by almost anyone, are diarrhea and constipation. These two digestive disorders are less severe compared to several cancers that could exist in the digestive system like colon cancer and liver cancer. Thus, diarrhea and constipation are easier to treat—these two are also very much easy to acquire.
As a brief background, Diarrhea is a bowel disorder wherein the classic symptom is an increase in the frequency of bowel movements (Marks, 2012). The disorder is also known as LBM or Loose Bowel Movement because the form of the bowel is often lost, having a liquid consistency, although this could usually vary from one person to another. Because dehydration is a common complication in diarrhea, one of the best remedies that physicians recommend is drinking a lot of water. Some use certain liquid electrolyte solutions to keep the body from dehydrating. Some doctors say that antibiotics could be used and are more effective for diarrhea since the disease is most often caused by bacterial invasion. Despite their effectiveness, studies suggest that antibiotics should only be used in chronic and much severe cases of diarrhea.
Constipation on the other hand is also a digestive disorder (just like diarrhea) but the pathophysiology is totally not the same—in fact, the mechanism of these two disorders are polar. If diarrhea is characterized by more frequent bowel movements with the bowel having an abnormal liquid consistency, constipation is simply the opposite of that. It is characterized by difficulty in excreting stools which most often results in having infrequent stool excretion. In constipation, the bowel becomes unusually hard, making it very difficult for the patient to excrete them. Constipation is not caused by any bacteria but it could coexist with diarrhea.
Constipation is simply caused by the slow transportation of food from one part of the intestines to another. A common remedy for this disorder is medication. Drugs such as Zelnorm, different types of laxatives, and Amitiza are the usual ones being administered to constipated patients. Although these drugs are usually enough to solve the problems brought about by constipation, these drugs are usually not easy to acquire. So, a more common and according to studies, more effective remedy for constipation had been introduced: suppositories. Suppositories make the bowel soft and thus increase the speed of passing the stools towards the anal sphincter and finally, outside the body. Suppositories are easier to acquire compared to other drugs for constipation; anyone can buy it over the counter. Plus, it is a much cheaper alternative compared to the drugs that were enumerated.
Favorite Foods and Food Modifications
When I was a ten-year-old kid, I used to eat a lot of ice cream—it was my favorite food. Besides ice cream, I also loved to eat foods that are commonly loved by a normal ten-year-old kid. Candies, chocolates, cakes, and potato chips are among my favorite foods back then. As of now, I could say that they are still my favorite although I have already learned that consuming these types of foods to much could be harmful to the body. Of course I will still be eating those types of foods 20 years or more from now although I am quite sure that I won’t eat them as frequent as when I was a ten-year-old anymore.
An individual usually has to modify his diet because firstly, nutritional demands vary from one age group to another. Secondly, different age groups have different levels of activity. Kids are more active compared to geriatric patients and so they require more energy-giving foods or Go foods. Lastly, diseases are usually diagnosed in late adulthood. With the diagnosis of different diseases, an individual may be advised by his doctor to refrain from eating particular foods—an advice that obligates him to modify his diet.
Human Digestion
Digestion starts at the mouth. The mouth is an opening where the food enters. With the help of the teeth and the muscles that are attached to the jaw, the food is mechanically digested and is transformed into a bolus. The food then enters the digestive tract. It passes through the pharynx, into the esophagus, and later on into the stomach. The stomach is a digestive organ that serves as the storage area of food while it is not yet digested. The process of digestion usually takes hours and the intestines could only digest so much food. Therefore it is important that there is somewhere where undigested food could be stored first. The stomach could expand or be stretched based on the demand for storage. The more food an individual inserts to his mouth, the more storage space larger his stomach could be. The opposite happens when an individual eats only small amount of foods.
Inside the stomach, the undigested food is usually mixed with digestive acids coming from the gallbladder, pancreas and the liver, turning it from bolus into chyme. After staying for quite some time in the stomach, the food enters the small intestine where majority of the digestion and absorption processes take place. The small intestine is divided into three regions. The most proximal region, right next to the stomach is the duodenum, followed by the jejunum and lastly, the ileum. The ileum and the cecum which is the first region of the large intestine forms a connection called the ilio-cecal junction. The food then goes to the large intestine. The large intestine is right where some vitamins, minerals and mostly water that were not absorbed in the small intestines are absorbed. As food leaves the intestines, it enters the anus where it exits the digestive tract and comes out as a waste product in the form of stools.
Works Cited
Mark, J. (2012). Diarrhea. Medicinenet.com. Accessed April 2012. Web.
Human Digestion. (2012). Human Digestion. Accesed April 2012. Available at http://corptrain.phoenix.edu/axia/sci241/sci241-digestivetract.html. Web.
