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10.4: Digestive Enzymes

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    Vitamins, minerals, alcohol, and cholesterol can be pretty much absorbed “as is” (i.e., without the need for digestion), but the bulk of our food—carbohydrate, protein, and fat—must first be digested (broken down) into simpler components. Starch and double sugars (disaccharides) must be broken down to single sugars (monosaccharides), proteins to amino acids, and triglycerides must have at least two of its three fatty acids removed (see Table 10-1). Digestive enzymes are what make this breakdown possible. (Enzymes were discussed in Chap. 4.)

    Location Nutrient Digested Enzyme
    Mouth Starch (amylose amylopectin)
    Fat (lipid)
    Salivary amylase
    Lingual lipase
    Stomach Fat
    Protein
    Gastric lipase
    Pepsins
    Small Intestine Starch
    Fat
    Protein
    Maltose
    Sucrose
    Lactose
    Pancreatic amylase
    Panctratic lipase
    Tyrpsin, Peptidases
    Maltase
    Sucrase
    Lactase

    Table 10-2 Some Digestive Enzymes

    A wide variety of enzymes are used in digestion (see Table 10-2). The mechanical actions of digestion—chewing, liquefying, mixing, and moving the food along—aid the enzymatic digestion by bringing food into intimate contact with its digestive enzymes.


    This page titled 10.4: Digestive Enzymes is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Judi S. Morrill via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.