Exercise and Your Digestive System

Your digestive system (gastrointestinal system) helps absorb micronutrients, macronutrients, electrolytes, and water from the food you consume. Therefore, it is important for your health as well as the normal functions. The macronutrients include carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. The micronutrients are minerals and vitamins. These nutrients are essential to create the basic structure of your body and regulate the normal functions of cells and tissues. Without adequate amounts of nutrients, you cannot keep up your health, perform exercise and physical activities, and train for athletic and sport competition.

Your digestive system basically consists of the mouth, pharynx (throat region), oesophagus (gullet), stomach, pancreas, liver, small intestine and large intestine. The mouth is responsible for chewing, which breaks your food into small particles, mixing with the saliva. The mouth, pharynx and the oesophagus help swallow food particles. Then, the stomach mixes the food with digestive juices, which are secreted by the pancreas and liver. It also initiates the digestive process with the help of various types of enzymes. Your small intestine absorbs nutrients and most of the water and electrolytes. The large intestine basically absorbs salt and water. It helps convert the rest of the contents into the faecal matter.

Adequate levels of exercise and physical activities and modifying dietary habits may help decrease the risk of developing some cancers. Increased dietary fibre intake can lower the risk of colorectal (large intestinal) cancer. The dietary fibres may dilute the faecal procarcinogens and carcinogens, reduce the time faecal matter moves along the bowel, binds with bile acids, which are carcinogenic, and produce short-chain fatty acids, which have anticarcinogenic action. Dietary fat increases the risk of developing colorectal cancer. A meal high in fat raises the bile acid secretion in the digestive tract. Bile acids normally help break down the dietary fat. However, a large amount of bile acids may allow some of the bile acids to convert to secondary bile acids, which are carcinogenic.

Your digestive tract helps perform well in sports and athletics. Dietary carbohydrates are the favourite fuel of your skeletal muscles during high-intensity athletic events and sports. If you do not consume an adequate amount of carbohydrates prior to and during competition, you cannot perform well. Dietary carbohydrates increase the availability of blood glucose. Therefore, your working tissues can use glucose as a constant fuel source during high-intensity physical activities. If you consume a sufficient amount of carbohydrates during prolonged as well as short-duration high-intensity aerobic exercises, you can enhance your performance throughout the particular activity well.

If a person ingests carbohydrates orally, he or she will have a limit to the maximum rate of blood-glucose usage during prolonged aerobic exercise. The digestive tract helps deliver carbohydrates to your body during exercise. It has several sites for limiting carbohydrate use, including gastric (stomach) emptying and the absorption. When the concentration of glucose in the drink goes up, the rate at which consumed glucose comes to the blood is lower compared to the rate of glucose used within the muscle. This indicates either the limitations of the digestive tract or a failure of the cardiovascular system to deliver glucose into the blood circulation from the digestive tract. The simultaneous consumption of both fructose and glucose causes the greater use of the carbohydrates by the skeletal muscles than the intake of similar amounts of fructose or glucose consumed alone. These sugar molecules are absorbed by different mechanisms in the digestive tract. If the glucose is infused into the blood, instead of the oral consumption, the glucose can be used by the muscles faster.



Related Links:

Exercise and Your Muscles
Exercise and Your Skeletal System
Exercise and Your Cardiovascular System
Exercise and Your Respiratory System
Exercise and Your Urinary System
Exercise and Your Nervous System