Crossword clues for digestion
digestion
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Digestion \Di*ges"tion\ (?; 106), n. [F. digestion, L. digestio.]
The act or process of digesting; reduction to order; classification; thoughtful consideration.
(Physiol.) The conversion of food, in the stomach and intestines, into soluble and diffusible products, capable of being absorbed by the blood.
(Med.) Generation of pus; suppuration.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
late 14c., from Old French digestion (13c.), from Latin digestionem (nominative digestio), noun of action from past participle stem of digerere (see digest (n.)).
Wiktionary
n. The process, in the gastrointestinal tract, by which food is converted into substances that can be utilized by the body.
WordNet
n. the process of decomposing organic matter (as in sewage) by bacteria or by chemical action or heat
the organic process by which food is converted into substances that can be absorbed into the body
learning and coming to understand ideas and information; "his appetite for facts was better than his digestion"
Wikipedia
In alchemy, digestion is a process in which gentle heat is applied to a substance over a period of several weeks.
This was traditionally performed by sealing a sample of the substance in a flask, and keeping the flask in fresh horse dung or sometimes in direct sunlight. Today, practitioners of alchemy use thermostat-controlled incubators.
Digestion is considered one of the 12 core alchemical processes and is "ruled", or "dominated", by the zodiacal sign of Leo.
Digestion is the breakdown of large insoluble food molecules into small water-soluble food molecules so that they can be absorbed into the watery blood plasma. In certain organisms, these smaller substances are absorbed through the small intestine into the blood stream. Digestion is a form of catabolism that is often divided into two processes based on how food is broken down: mechanical and chemical digestion. The term mechanical digestion refers to the physical breakdown of large pieces of food into smaller pieces which can subsequently be accessed by digestive enzymes. In chemical digestion, enzymes break down food into the small molecules the body can use.
In the human digestive system, food enters the mouth and mechanical digestion of the food starts by the action of mastication (chewing), a form of mechanical digestion, and the wetting contact of saliva. Saliva, a liquid secreted by the salivary glands, contains salivary amylase, an enzyme which starts the digestion of starch in the food; the saliva also contains mucus, which lubricates the food, and hydrogen carbonate, which provides the ideal conditions of pH ( alkaline) for amylase to work. After undergoing mastication and starch digestion, the food will be in the form of a small, round slurry mass called a bolus. It will then travel down the esophagus and into the stomach by the action of peristalsis. Gastric juice in the stomach starts protein digestion. Gastric juice mainly contains hydrochloric acid and pepsin. As these two chemicals may damage the stomach wall, mucus is secreted by the stomach, providing a slimy layer that acts as a shield against the damaging effects of the chemicals. At the same time protein digestion is occurring, mechanical mixing occurs by peristalsis, which is waves of muscular contractions that move along the stomach wall. This allows the mass of food to further mix with the digestive enzymes.
After some time (typically 1–2 hours in humans, 4–6 hours in dogs, 3–4 hours in house cats), the resulting thick liquid is called chyme. When the pyloric sphincter valve opens, chyme enters the duodenum where it mixes with digestive enzymes from the pancreas and bile juice from the liver and then passes through the small intestine, in which digestion continues. When the chyme is fully digested, it is absorbed into the blood. 95% of absorption of nutrients occurs in the small intestine. Water and minerals are reabsorbed back into the blood in the colon (large intestine) where the pH is slightly acidic about 5.6 ~ 6.9. Some vitamins, such as biotin and vitamin K (KMK7) produced by bacteria in the colon are also absorbed into the blood in the colon. Waste material is eliminated from the rectum during defecation.
Usage examples of "digestion".
Assimilative debility is indicated by an impaired digestion and a consequent suppression, or an abnormal state of the secretions.
The experiments proving that the leaves are capable of true digestion, and that the glands absorb the digested matter, are given in detail in the sixth chapter.
It matters not whether he is professional or amateur, so he is untouched by academicism and has not done so much reading or writing as to impair his mental digestion and his clarity of vision.
The nostrums advertised extensively over the country as specifics for this disease, while they may, in some instances, prevent the attacks for a short time, irritate the stomach, impair digestion, lower vitality, and permanently injure the system, often rendering the disease incurable.
It may be well to premise for the sake of any reader who knows nothing about the digestion of albuminous compounds by animals that this is effected by means of a ferment, pepsin, together with weak hydrochloric acid, though almost any acid will serve.
That ordinary alimentation, which includes the process of digestion, the subsequent vital changes involved in the conversion of food into blood, and its final transformation into tissue, causes mental languor and dullness, as well as bodily exhaustion, is attested by universal experience.
In minute doses Blood-root is a valuable alterative, acting upon the biliary secretion and improving the circulation and digestion.
BY this time, the English Ambassage Extraordinary, three hundred strong, with its aching diplomacy and its groaning digestions, with its cliques, its amateurs, its professionals and with the Earl and Countess of Lennox, was already at Orleans, not much more than two hundred miles away.
Comanche had that blissful look of the bayman who has eaten just a little too much, Ned had assumed the glassy stare with which he always succumbs to the processes of digestion, osmosis, transmogrification and apotheosis on such occasions, and the rest were trying their land-legs about the banquet hall.
The latter possess double endowments, and not only participate in the operations of deglutition, digestion, circulation, and respiration, but are also nerves of sensation and instinctive motion.
The special dietetic value of Lemons consists in their potash salts, the citrate, malate, and tartrate, which are respectively antiscorbutic, and of assistance in promoting biliary digestion.
Oatmeal comes the nearest to wheat in the amount of nitrogen or protein, but the digestible part of this is much smaller than in wheat, and the indigestible portion is decidedly irritating to the bowels, so that if used in excess of about one-fifth of our total starch-food required, it is likely to upset the digestion.
My guess would be that uranium salts act as a catalytic agent in the processes of metabolism and digestion, somewhat as some of our own ductless gland secretions.
On this account they should not be eaten when at all old and hard by persons of slow digestion, because apt to lodge in the intestines, and to become entangled in their caecal pouch, or in its appendix.
According to the Salernitan maxim, if the fruit of the Walnut be eaten after fish, the digestion of the latter is promoted:-- Post pisces nux sit: post carnes case us esto.