Animal Nutrition

Chapter 41   Animal Nutrition
Lecture Outline
Overview: The Need to Feed

• All animals eat other organisms—dead or alive, whole or by the piece (including parasites).
• In general, animals fit into one of three dietary categories.
• Herbivores, such as gorillas, cows, hares, and many snails, eat mainly autotrophs (plants and algae).
• Carnivores, such as sharks, hawks, spiders, and snakes, eat other animals.
• Omnivores, such as cockroaches, bears, raccoons, and humans, consume animal and plant or algal matter.
• Humans evolved as hunters, scavengers, and gatherers.
• While the terms herbivore, carnivore, and omnivore represent the kinds of food that an animal usually eats, most animals are opportunistic, eating foods that are outside their main dietary category when these foods are available.
• For example, cattle and deer, which are herbivores, may occasionally eat small animals or bird eggs.
• Most carnivores obtain some nutrients from plant materials that remain in the digestive tract of the prey that they eat.
• All animals consume bacteria along with other types of food.
• For any animal, a nutritionally adequate diet must satisfy three nutritional needs:
• A balanced diet must provide fuel for cellular work.
• It must supply the organic raw materials needed to construct organic molecules.
• Essential nutrients that the animal cannot make from raw materials must be provided in its food.

Concept 41.1 Homeostatic mechanisms manage an animal’s energy budget

• The flow of food energy into and out of an animal can be viewed as a “budget,” with the production of ATP accounting for the largest fraction by far of the energy budget of most animals.
• ATP powers basal or resting metabolism, as well as activity and, in endothermic animals, thermoregulation.
• Nearly all ATP generation is based on the oxidation of organic fuel molecules—carbohydrates, proteins, and fats—in cellular respiration.
• The monomers of any of these substances can be used as fuel.
• Fats are especially rich in energy, liberating about twice the energy liberated from an equal amount of carbohydrate or protein during oxidation.
• When an animal takes in more calories than it needs to produce ATP, the excess can be used for biosynthesis.
• This biosynthesis can be used to grow in size or for reproduction, or it can be stored in energy depots.
• In humans, the liver and muscle cells store energy as glycogen, a polymer made up of many glucose units.
• Glucose is a major fuel molecule for cells, and its metabolism, regulated by hormone action, is an important aspect of homeostasis.
• If glycogen stores are full and caloric intake still exceeds caloric expenditure, the excess is usually stored as fat.
• When fewer calories are taken in than are expended—perhaps because of sustained heavy exercise or lack of food—fuel is taken out of storage depots and oxidized.
• The human body expends liver glycogen first and then draws on muscle glycogen and fat.
• Most healthy people—even if they are not obese—have enough stored fat to sustain them through several weeks of starvation.
• The average human’s energy needs can be fueled by the oxidation of only 0.3 kg of fat per day.
• Severe problems occur if the energy budget remains out of balance for long periods.
• If the diet of a person or other animal is chronically deficient in calories, undernourishment results.
• The stores of glycogen and fat are used up, the body begins breaking down its own proteins for fuel, muscles begin to decrease in size, and the brain can become protein-deficient.
• If energy intake remains less than energy expenditure, death will eventually result, and even if a seriously undernourished person survives, some damage may be irreversible.
• Because a diet of a single staple such as rice or corn can often provide sufficient calories, undernourishment is generally common only where drought, war, or some other crisis has severely disrupted the food supply.
• Another cause of undernourishment is anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder associated with a compulsive aversion to body fat.

 Obesity is a global health problem.

• Overnourishment, or obesity, the result of excessive food intake, is a common problem in the United States and other affluent nations.
• The human body tends to store any excess fat molecules obtained from food instead of using them for fuel.
• In contrast, when we eat an excess of carbohydrates, the body tends to increase its rate of carbohydrate oxidation.
• Thus, the amount of fat in the diet can have a more direct effect on weight gain than the amount of dietary carbohydrates.
• While fat hoarding can be a liability today, it probably provided a fitness advantage for our hunting-and-gathering ancestors, enabling individuals with genes promoting the storage of high-energy molecules during feasts to survive the eventual famines.
• The World Health Organization now recognizes obesity as a major global health problem.
• The increased availability of fattening foods in many countries combines with more sedentary lifestyles to put excess weight on bodies.
• In the United States, the percentage of obese people has doubled to 30% over the past 20 years, and another 35% are overweight.
• Obesity contributes to health problems, including diabetes, cancer of the colon and breast, and cardiovascular disease.
• Research on the causes and possible treatments for weight-control problems continues.
• Over the long term, feedback circuits control the body’s storage and metabolism of fat.
• Several hormones regulate long-term and short-term appetite by affecting a “satiety center” in the brain.
• Inheritance is a major factor in obesity.
• Most of the weight-regulating hormones are polypeptides.
• Dozens of genes that code for these hormones have been identified.
• In mammals, a hormone called leptin, produced by adipose cells, is a key player in a complex feedback mechanism regulating fat storage and use.
• As adipose tissue increases, high leptin levels cue the brain to depress appetite and to increase energy-consuming muscular activity and body-heat production.
• Conversely, loss of body fat decreases leptin levels in the blood, signaling the brain to increase appetite and weight gain.
• Mice that inherit a defective gene for leptin become very obese.
• These mice can be treated by injection with leptin.
• However, very few obese people have defective leptin production.
• In fact, most obese humans have abnormally high leptin levels, due to their large amounts of adipose tissue.
• For some reason, the brain’s satiety center does not respond to the high leptin levels in many obese people.
• One hypothesis is that in humans, in contrast to other mammals, the leptin system functions to stimulate appetite and prevent weight loss rather than to prevent weight gain.
• Most humans crave fatty foods. Although fat hoarding is a health liability today, it may have been advantageous in our evolutionary past.
• Our ancestors on the African savanna were hunter-gatherers who probably survived mainly on plant materials, occasionally supplemented by meat.
• Natural selection may have favored those individuals with a physiology that induced them to gorge on fatty foods on the rare occasions that they were available.
• Perhaps these individuals were more likely to survive famine.
• Obesity may be beneficial in certain species.
• Small seabirds called petrels fly long distances to find food that is rich in lipids.
• By bringing lipid-rich food to their chicks, the parents minimize the weight of food that they must carry.
• However, because these foods are low in protein, young petrels have to consume more calories than they burn in metabolism—and consequently they become obese.
• In some petrel species, chicks at the end of the growth period weigh much more their parents, are too heavy to fly, and need to starve for several days to fly.
• The fat reserves help growing chicks to survive periods when parents are unable to find food.

Concept 41.2 An animal’s diet must supply carbon skeletons and essential nutrients

• In addition to fuel for ATP production, an animal’s diet must supply all the raw materials for biosynthesis.
• This requires organic precursors (carbon skeletons) from its food.
• Given a source of organic carbon (such as sugar) and a source of organic nitrogen (usually in amino acids from the digestion of proteins), animals can fabricate a great variety of organic molecules—carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids.
• Besides fuel and carbon skeletons, an animal’s diet must also supply essential nutrients.
• These are materials that must be obtained in preassembled form because the animal’s cells cannot make them from any raw material.
• Some materials are essential for all animals, but others are needed only by certain species.
• For example, ascorbic acid (vitamin C) is an essential nutrient for humans and other primates, guinea pigs, and some birds and snakes, but not for most other animals.
• An animal whose diet is missing one or more essential nutrients is said to be malnourished.
• For example, many herbivores living where soils and plants are deficient in phosphorus eat bones to obtain this essential nutrient.
• Malnutrition is much more common than undernourishment in human populations, and it is even possible for an overnourished individual to be malnourished.
• There are four classes of essential nutrients: essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals.
• Animals require 20 amino acids to make proteins.
• Most animals can synthesize half of these if their diet includes organic nitrogen.
• The remaining essential amino acids must be obtained from food in prefabricated form.
• Eight amino acids are essential in the adult human with a ninth, histidine, being essential for infants.
• The same amino acids are essential for most animals.
• A diet that provides insufficient amounts of one or more essential amino acids causes a form of malnutrition known as protein deficiency.
• This is the most common type of malnutrition among humans.
• The victims are usually children, who, if they survive infancy, are likely to be retarded in physical and perhaps mental development.
• In one variation of protein malnutrition, called kwashiorkor, the diet provides enough calories but is severely deficient in protein.
• The protein in animal products, such as meat, eggs, and cheese, are “complete,” which means that they provide all the essential amino acids in their proper proportions.
• Most plant proteins are “incomplete,” being deficient in one or more essential amino acid.
• For example, corn is deficient in the amino acid lysine.
• Individuals who are forced by economic necessity or other circumstances to obtain nearly all their calories from corn would show symptoms of protein deficiency.
• This is true from any diet limited to a single plant source, including rice, wheat, and potatoes.
• Protein deficiency from a vegetarian diet can be avoided by eating a combination of plant foods that complement one another to supply all essential amino acids.
• For example, beans supply the lysine that is missing in corn, and corn provides the methionine that is deficient in beans.
• Because the body cannot easily store amino acids, a diet with all essential amino acids must be eaten each day, or protein synthesis is retarded.
• Some animals have special adaptations that get them through periods where their bodies demand extraordinary amounts of protein.
• For example, penguins use muscle proteins as a source of amino acids to make new proteins during molting.
• While animals can synthesize most of the fatty acids they need, they cannot synthesize essential fatty acids.
• These are certain unsaturated fatty acids, including linoleic acids, which are required by humans.
• Most diets furnish ample quantities of essential fatty acids, and thus deficiencies are rare.
• Vitamins are organic molecules required in the diet in quantities that are quite small compared with the relatively large quantities of essential amino acids and fatty acids animals need.
• While vitamins are required in tiny amounts—from about 0.01 mg to 100 mg per day—depending on the vitamin, vitamin deficiency (or overdose in some cases) can cause serious problems.
• So far, 13 vitamins essential to humans have been identified.
• These can be grouped into water-soluble vitamins and fat-soluble vitamins, with extremely diverse physiological functions.
• The water-soluble vitamins include the B complex, which consists of several compounds that function as coenzymes in key metabolic processes.
• Vitamin C, also water soluble, is required for the production of connective tissue.
• Excessive amounts of water-soluble vitamins are excreted in urine, and moderate overdoses are probably harmless.
• The fat-soluble vitamins are A, D, E, and K.
• They have a wide variety of functions.
• Vitamin A is incorporated in the visual pigments of the eye.
• Vitamin D aids in calcium absorption and bone formation.
• Vitamin E seems to protect membrane phospholipids from oxidation.
• Vitamin K is required for blood clotting.
• Excess amounts of fat-soluble vitamins are not excreted but are deposited in body fat.
• Overconsumption may lead to toxic accumulations of these compounds.
• The subject of vitamin dosage has aroused heated scientific and popular debate.
• Some believe that it is sufficient to meet recommended daily allowances (RDAs), the nutrient intake proposed by nutritionists to maintain health.
• Others argue that RDAs are set too low for some vitamins, and a fraction of these people believe, probably mistakenly, that massive doses of vitamins confer health benefits.
• Debate centers on the optimal doses of vitamins C and E.
• While research is ongoing, all that can be said with any certainty is that people who eat a balanced diet are not likely to develop symptoms of vitamin deficiency.
• Minerals are simple inorganic nutrients, usually required in small amounts—from less than 1 mg to about 2,500 mg per day.
• Mineral requirements vary with animal species.
• Humans and other vertebrates require relatively large quantities of calcium and phosphorus for the construction and maintenance of bone.
• Calcium is also necessary for the normal functioning of nerves and muscles.
• Phosphorus is a component of the cytochromes that function in cellular respiration.
• Iron is a component of the cytochromes that function in cellular respiration and of hemoglobin, the oxygen-binding protein of red blood cells.
• Magnesium, iron, zinc, copper, manganese, selenium, and molybdenum are cofactors built into the structure of certain enzymes.
• Magnesium, for example, is present in enzymes that split ATP.
• Iodine is required for thyroid hormones, which regulate metabolic rate.
• Sodium, potassium, and chloride are important in nerve function and have a major influence on the osmotic balance between cells and the interstitial fluids.
• Excess consumption of salt (sodium chloride) is harmful.
• The average U.S. citizen eats enough salt to provide about 20 times the required amount of sodium.
• Excess consumption of salt or several other minerals can upset homeostatic balance and cause toxic side effects.
• For example, too much sodium is associated with high blood pressure, and excess iron causes liver damage.

Concept 41.3 The main stages of food processing are ingestion, digestion, absorption, and elimination

• Ingestion, the act of eating, is only the first stage of food processing.
• Food is “packaged” in bulk form and contains very complex arrays of molecules, including large polymers and various substances that may be difficult to process or even toxic.
• Animals cannot use macromolecules like proteins, fats, and carbohydrates in the form of starch or other polysaccharides.
• First, polymers are too large to pass through membranes and enter the cells of the animal.
• Second, the macromolecules that make up an animal are not identical to those of its food.
• In building their macromolecules, however, all organisms use common monomers.
• For example, soybeans, fruit flies, and humans all assemble their proteins from the same 20 amino acids.
• Digestion, the second stage of food processing, is the process of breaking food down into molecules small enough for the body to absorb.
• Digestion cleaves macromolecules into their component monomers, which the animal then uses to make its own molecules or as fuel for ATP production.
• Polysaccharides and disaccharides are split into simple sugars.
• Fats are digested to glycerol and fatty acids.
• Proteins are broken down into amino acids.
• Nucleic acids are cleaved into nucleotides.
• Digestion reverses the process that a cell uses to link together monomers to form macromolecules.
• Rather than removing a molecule of water for each new covalent bond formed, digestion breaks bonds with the addition of water via enzymatic hydrolysis.
• A variety of hydrolytic enzymes catalyze the digestion of each of the classes of macromolecules found in food.
• Chemical digestion is usually preceded by mechanical fragmentation of the food—by chewing, for instance.
• Breaking food into smaller pieces increases the surface area exposed to digestive juices containing hydrolytic enzymes.
• After the food is digested, the animal’s cells take up small molecules such as amino acids and simple sugars from the digestive compartment, a process called absorption.
• During elimination, undigested material passes out of the digestive compartment.

 Digestion occurs in specialized compartments.

• To avoid digesting their own cells and tissues, most organisms conduct digestion in specialized compartments.
• The simplest digestive compartments are food vacuoles, organelles in which hydrolytic enzymes break down food without digesting the cell’s own cytoplasm, a process termed intracellular digestion.
• This process begins after a cell has engulfed food by phagocytosis or pinocytosis.
• Newly formed food vacuoles fuse with lysosomes, which are organelles containing hydrolytic enzymes.
• Later the vacuole fuses with an anal pore, and its contents are eliminated.
• In most animals, at least some hydrolysis occurs by extracellular digestion, the breakdown of food outside cells.
• Extracellular digestion occurs within compartments that are continuous with the outside of the animal’s body.
• This enables organisms to devour much larger prey than can be ingested by phagocytosis and digested intracellularly.
• Many animals with simple body plans, such as cnidarians and flatworms, have digestive sacs with single openings, called gastrovascular cavities.
• These cavities function in both digestion and distribution of nutrients throughout the body.
• For example, the cnidarians called hydras capture their prey with nematocysts and use tentacles to stuff the prey through the mouth into the gastrovascular cavity.
• The prey is then partially digested by enzymes secreted by specialized gland cells of the gastrodermis.
• Nutritive muscular cells in the gastrodermis engulf the food particles.
• Most of the actual hydrolysis of macromolecules occurs intracellularly.
• Undigested materials are eliminated through the mouth.
• In contrast to cnidarians and flatworms, most animals have digestive tubes extending between a mouth and anus.
• These tubes are called complete digestive tracts or alimentary canals.
• Because food moves in one direction, the tube can be organized into specialized regions that carry out digestion and nutrient absorption in a stepwise fashion.
• In addition, animals with alimentary canals can eat more food before the earlier meal is completely digested.

Concept 41.4 Each organ of the mammalian digestive system has specialized food-processing functions

• The general principles of food processing are similar for a diversity of animals, including the mammalian system that we will use as a representative example.
• The mammalian digestive system consists of the alimentary canal and various accessory glands that secrete digestive juices into the canal through ducts.
• Peristalsis, rhythmic waves of contraction by smooth muscles in the walls of the canal, pushes food along.
• Sphincters, muscular ring-like valves, regulate the passage of material between specialized chambers of the canal.
• The accessory glands include the salivary glands, the pancreas, the liver, and the gallbladder.
• After chewing and swallowing, it takes 5 to 10 seconds for food to pass down the esophagus to the stomach, where it spends 2 to 6 hours being partially digested.
• Final digestion and nutrient absorption occur in the small intestine over a period of 5 to 6 hours.
• In 12 to 24 hours, any undigested material passes through the large intestine, and feces are expelled through the anus.

 The oral cavity, pharynx, and esophagus initiate food processing.

• Both physical and chemical digestion of food begins in the mouth.
• During chewing, teeth of various shapes cut, smash, and grind food, making it easier to swallow and increasing its surface area.
• The presence of food in the oral cavity triggers a nervous reflex that causes the salivary glands to deliver saliva through ducts to the oral cavity.
• Salivation may occur in anticipation because of learned associations between eating and the time of day, cooking odors, or other stimuli.
• Saliva contains a slippery glycoprotein called mucin, which protects the soft lining of the mouth from abrasion and lubricates the food for easier swallowing.
• Saliva also contains buffers that help prevent tooth decay by neutralizing acid in the mouth.
• Antibacterial agents in saliva kill many bacteria that enter the mouth with food.
• Chemical digestion of carbohydrates, a main source of chemical energy, begins in the oral cavity.
• Saliva contains salivary amylase, an enzyme that hydrolyzes starch and glycogen into smaller polysaccharides and the disaccharide maltose.
• The tongue tastes food, manipulates it during chewing, and helps shape the food into a ball called a bolus.
• During swallowing, the tongue pushes a bolus back into the oral cavity and into the pharynx.
• The pharynx, also called the throat, is a junction that opens to both the esophagus and the trachea (windpipe).
• When we swallow, the top of the windpipe moves up so that its opening, the glottis, is blocked by a cartilaginous flap, the epiglottis.
• This mechanism normally ensures that a bolus will be guided into the entrance of the esophagus and not directed down the windpipe.
• When not swallowing, the esophageal sphincter muscles are contracted, the epiglottis is up, and the glottis is open, allowing airflow to the lungs.
• When a food bolus reaches the pharynx, the larynx moves upward and the epiglottis tips over the glottis, closing off the trachea.
• The esophageal sphincter relaxes and the bolus enters the esophagus.
• In the meantime, the larynx moves downward and the trachea is opened, and peristalsis moves the bolus down the esophagus to the stomach.
• The esophagus conducts food from the pharynx down to the stomach by peristalsis.
• The muscles at the very top of the esophagus are striated and, therefore, under voluntary control.
• Involuntary waves of contraction by smooth muscles in the rest of the esophagus then take over.

 The stomach stores food and performs preliminary digestion.

• The stomach is located in the upper abdominal cavity, just below the diaphragm.
• With accordion-like folds and a very elastic wall, the stomach can stretch to accommodate about 2 L of food and fluid, storing an entire meal.
• The stomach also secretes a digestive fluid called gastric juice and mixes this secretion with the food by the churning action of the smooth muscles in the stomach wall.
• Gastric juice is secreted by the epithelium lining numerous deep pits in the stomach wall.
• With a high concentration of hydrochloric acid, the pH of the gastric juice is about 2—acidic enough to digest iron nails.
• This acid disrupts the extracellular matrix that binds cells together.
• It kills most bacteria that are swallowed with food.
• Also present in gastric juice is pepsin, an enzyme that begins the hydrolysis of proteins.
• Pepsin, which works well in strongly acidic environments, breaks peptide bonds adjacent to specific amino acids, producing smaller polypeptides.
• Pepsin is secreted in an inactive form called pepsinogen by specialized chief cells in gastric pits.
• Parietal cells, also in the pits, secrete hydrochloric acid that converts pepsinogen to the active pepsin only when both reach the lumen of the stomach, minimizing self-digestion.
• In a positive-feedback system, activated pepsin can activate more pepsinogen molecules.
• The stomach’s second line of defense against self-digestion is a coating of mucus, secreted by epithelial cells, that protects the stomach lining.
• Still, the epithelium is continually eroded, and the epithelium is completely replaced by mitosis every three days.
• Gastric ulcers, lesions in the stomach lining, are caused by the acid-tolerant bacterium Heliobacter pylori.
• Ulcers are often treated with antibiotics.
• About every 20 seconds, the stomach contents are mixed by the churning action of smooth muscles.
• You may feel hunger pangs when your empty stomach churns.
• Sensations of hunger are also associated with brain centers that monitor the blood’s nutritional status and the levels of appetite-controlling hormones.
• As a result of mixing and enzyme action, what begins in the stomach as a recently swallowed meal becomes a nutrient-rich broth known as acid chyme.
• Most of the time the stomach is closed off at either end.
• The opening from the esophagus to the stomach, the cardiac orifice, normally dilates only when a bolus driven by peristalsis arrives.
• The occasional backflow of acid chyme from the stomach into the lower esophagus causes heartburn.
• At the opening from the stomach to the small intestine is the pyloric sphincter, which helps regulate the passage of chyme into the intestine.
• A squirt at a time, it takes about 2 to 6 hours after a meal for the stomach to empty.

 The small intestine is the major organ of digestion and absorption.

• With a length of more than 6 m in humans, the small intestine is the longest section of the alimentary canal.
• Most of the enzymatic hydrolysis of food macromolecules and most of the absorption of nutrients into the blood occurs in the small intestine.
• In the first 25 cm or so of the small intestine, the duodenum, acid chyme from the stomach mixes with digestive juices from the pancreas, liver, gall bladder, and gland cells of the intestinal wall.
• The pancreas produces several hydrolytic enzymes and an alkaline solution rich in bicarbonate that buffers the acidity of the chyme from the stomach.
• Pancreatic enzymes include protein-digesting enzymes (proteases) that are secreted into the duodenum in inactive form.
• The pancreatic proteases are activated once they are in the extracellular space within the duodenum.
• The liver performs a wide variety of important functions in the body, including the production of bile.
• Bile is stored in the gallbladder until needed.
• It contains bile salts that act as detergents that aid in the digestion and absorption of fats.
• Bile also contains pigments that are by-products of red blood cell destruction in the liver.
• These bile pigments are eliminated from the body with the feces.
• The brush border of the epithelial lining of the duodenum produces several digestive enzymes.
• Several enzymes are secreted into the lumen, while others are bound to the surface of the epithelial cells.
• Enzymatic digestion is completed as peristalsis moves the mixture of chyme and digestive juices along the small intestine.
• Most digestion is completed while the chyme is still in the duodenum.
• The remaining regions of the small intestine, the jejunum and ileum, function mainly in the absorption of nutrients and water.
• To enter the body, nutrients in the lumen must pass the lining of the digestive tract.
• A few nutrients are absorbed in the stomach and large intestine, but most absorption takes place in the small intestine.
• The small intestine has a huge surface area—300 m2, roughly the size of a tennis court.
• The enormous surface of the small intestine is an adaptation that greatly increases the rate of nutrient absorption.
• Large circular folds in the lining bear fingerlike projections called villi, and each epithelial cell of a villus has many microscopic appendages called microvilli that are exposed to the intestinal lumen.
• The microvilli are the basis of the term “brush border” for the intestinal epithelium.
• Penetrating the core of each villus is a net of microscopic blood vessels (capillaries) and a single vessel of the lymphatic system called a lacteal.
• Nutrients are absorbed across the intestinal epithelium and then across the unicellular epithelium of capillaries or lacteals.
• Only these two single layers of epithelial cells separate nutrients in the lumen of the intestine from the bloodstream.
• In some cases, transport of nutrients across the epithelial cells is passive, as molecules move down their concentration gradients from the lumen of the intestine into the epithelial cells, and then into capillaries.
• Fructose, a simple sugar, moves by diffusion alone down its concentration gradient from the lumen of the intestine into the epithelial cells and then into capillaries.
• Amino acids and sugars pass through the epithelium, enter capillaries, and are carried away from the intestine by the bloodstream.
• Glycerol and fatty acids absorbed by epithelial cells are recombined into fats.
• The fats are mixed with cholesterol and coated with special proteins to form small globules called chylomicrons.
• Chylomicrons are transported by exocytosis out of epithelial cells and into lacteals.
• The lacteals converge into the larger vessels of the lymphatic system, eventually draining into large veins that return blood to the heart.
• The capillaries and veins that drain nutrients away from the villi converge into the hepatic portal vein, which leads directly to the liver.
• Therefore, the liver, which has the metabolic versatility to interconvert various organic molecules, has first access to amino acids and sugars absorbed after a meal is digested.
• The liver modifies and regulates this varied mix before releasing materials back into the bloodstream.
• For example, the liver helps regulate the levels of glucose in the blood, ensuring that blood exiting the liver usually has a glucose concentration very close to 0.1%, regardless of carbohydrate content of the meal.
• From the liver, blood travels to the heart, which pumps the blood and nutrients to all parts of the body.

 Reclaiming water is a major function of the large intestine.

• The large intestine, or colon, is connected to the small intestine at a T-shaped junction where a sphincter controls the movement of materials.
• One arm of the T is a pouch called the cecum.
• The relatively small cecum of humans has a fingerlike extension, the appendix, which makes a minor contribution to body defense.
• The main branch of the human colon is shaped like an upside-down U, about 1.5 m long.
• A major function of the colon is to recover water that has entered the alimentary canal as the solvent to various digestive juices.
• About 7 L of fluid are secreted into the lumen of the digestive tract of a person each day.
• More than 90% of the water is reabsorbed, most in the small intestine, the rest in the colon.
• Digestive wastes, the feces, become more solid as they are moved along the colon by peristalsis.
• Movement in the colon is sluggish, requiring 12 to 24 hours for material to travel the length of the organ.
• If the lining of the colon is irritated by a bacterial infection, less water than usual is resorbed, resulting in diarrhea.
• If insufficient water is absorbed because peristalsis moves the feces too slowly, the result is constipation.
• Living in the large intestine is a rich flora of mostly harmless bacteria.
• One of the most common inhabitants of the human colon is Escherichia coli, a favorite research organism.
• As a by-product of their metabolism, many colon bacteria generate gases, including methane and hydrogen sulfide.
• Some bacteria produce vitamins, including biotin, folic acid, vitamin K, and several B vitamins, which supplement our dietary intake of vitamins.
• Feces contain masses of bacteria and undigested materials including cellulose.
• Although cellulose fibers have no caloric value to humans, their presence in the diet helps move food along the digestive tract.
• The terminal portion of the colon is called the rectum, where feces are stored until they can be eliminated.
• Between the rectum and the anus are two sphincters, one involuntary and one voluntary.
• Once or more each day, strong contractions of the colon create an urge to defecate.

Concept 41.5 Evolutionary adaptations of vertebrate digestive systems are often associated with diet

• The digestive systems of mammals and other vertebrates are variations on a common plan.
• However, there are many intriguing variations, often associated with the animal’s diet.
• Dentition, an animal’s assortment of teeth, is one example of structural variation reflecting diet.
• Particularly in mammals, evolutionary adaptation of teeth for processing different kinds of food is one of the major reasons that mammals have been so successful.
• Nonmammalian vertebrates generally have less specialized dentition, but there are exceptions.
• For example, poisonous snakes, such as rattlesnakes, have fangs, modified teeth that inject venom into prey.
• Some snakes have hollow fangs, like syringes, while others drip poison along grooves in the tooth surface.
• All snakes have another important anatomic adaptation for feeding, the ability swallow large prey whole.
• The lower jaw is loosely hinged to the skull by an elastic ligament that permits the mouth and throat to open very wide for swallowing.
• Large, expandable stomachs are common in carnivores, which may go for a long time between meals and, therefore, must eat as much as they can when they do catch prey.
• For example, a 200-kg African lion can consume 40 kg of meat in one meal.
• The length of the vertebrate digestive system is also correlated with diet.
• In general, herbivores and omnivores have longer alimentary canals relative to their body sizes than do carnivores, providing more time for digestion and more surface areas for absorption of nutrients.
• Vegetation is more difficult to digest than meat because it contains cells walls.

 Symbiotic microorganisms help nourish many vertebrates.

• Much of the chemical energy in the diet of herbivorous animals is contained in the cellulose of plant cell walls.
• However, animals do not produce enzymes that hydrolyze cellulose.
• Many vertebrates (and termites) solve this problem by housing large populations of symbiotic bacteria and protists in special fermentation chambers in their alimentary canals.
• These microorganisms do have enzymes that can digest cellulose to simple sugars that the animal can absorb.
• The location of symbiotic microbes in herbivores’ digestive tracts varies depending on the species.
• The hoatzin, an herbivorous bird that lives in South American rain forests, has a large, muscular crop that houses symbiotic microorganisms.
• Many herbivorous mammals, including horses, house symbiotic microorganisms in a large cecum, the pouch where the small and large intestines connect.
• The symbiotic bacteria of rabbits and some rodents live in the large intestine and cecum.
• Since most nutrients are absorbed in the small intestine, these organisms recover nutrients from fermentation in the large intestine by eating some of their feces and passing food through a second time.
• The koala also has an enlarged cecum, where symbiotic bacteria ferment finely shredded eucalyptus leaves.
• The most elaborate adaptations for a herbivorous diet have evolved in the ruminants, which include deer, cattle, and sheep.
• When the cow first chews and swallows a mouthful of grass, boluses enter the rumen and the reticulum.
• Symbiotic bacteria and protists digest this cellulose-rich meal, secreting fatty acids.
• Periodically, the cow regurgitates and rechews the cud, which further breaks down the cellulose fibers.
• The cow then reswallows the cud to the omasum, where water is removed.
• The cud, with many microorganisms, passes to the abomasum for digestion by the cow’s enzymes.