Vivian’s Travel Agency
What’s your plan for this Christmas
holiday? A beach in Florida? Or
vacationing in Paris?
If your plan is something like that, then I
have to tell you that You Are OUT!!
The hottest plan in this season is the
fantastic trip to the Digestive System!
COOOOOOOOOL!
Introduction
• This is a three-day trip. Tourists will travel
through the alimentary canal, all the way
from the mouth to the anus.
• There are many trendy spots and exciting
activities in this journey. They are labeled
with “☆” in this brochure. Also, you can find
the most famous exports in the digestive
system.
WARNING & COMMITMENTS
• Make sure you’ve bought Pacific Insurance
before this trip.
• Tourists will be told all the possible dangers
in this brochure BEFORE their trips. Suitable
equipment for protection will be provided
during the trip. Vivian’s Travelling Agency is
not responsible for the accidents caused by
the carelessness of tourists.
• Therefore, make sure you’ve studied this
brochure BEFORE your trip!
DAY 1
From Oral Cavity to Esophagus
Equipment required: life jacket, safety
helmet, protective clothing
Oral Cavity
Danger coefficient: 1W
• Tourists will start their trip in the oral cavity.
Another word for oral cavity is simply the
mouth. Its primary function is for storing
food when people chew it.
• This is where saliva is produced. Therefore,
make sure you have your life jacket on.
Tongue
Danger coefficient: 1W
• It helps direct food onto the teeth.
• It holds food in the oral cavity.
• This place is quite moist and warm, but soft
and warm after all.
Teeth
Danger coefficient: 4W
• Physical digestion starts here by breaking
down food into smaller pieces.
• DANGEROUS! Make sure you wear your
safety helmet!! You will be safe in the cool
protective cars.
Salivary Glands
Danger coefficient: 3W
• You can see “ocean scene” here for saliva is
produced. It helps moisten food, and
enzymes like salivary amylase begins the
chemical digestion of carbohydrates. It
breaks down starch to maltose.
• We will watch the process of digestion and
then continue our trip by ship.
• You need to wear your special life jacket
which protect you from being digested.
Pharynx
Danger coefficient: 2W
• Here we are at the back of the throat where
oral and nasal cavities join.
• Tourists will be swallowed soon and begins
their trip to the deeper of digestive tract.
Epiglottis
Danger coefficient: 3W
• Although it’s just a flap of tissue, this
place is quite important. It closes off
the opening of the trachea when
people swallow. It keeps food from
entering the air passage.
☆Trendy spot: We would travel by
pneumatic raft descends the rapids
when swallowing happens. This is
very stimulating!
Hotel: Esophagus
• This is the end of our first day. We
will rest in the esophagus.
Esophagus has no role in the
chemical digestion. Its only
purpose is to conduct food to the
stomach.
Why is it Contracting?
• Feeling the rhythmical movements of
esophageal wall? This is the process of
peristalsis. It has smooth muscles which
lining the esophageal wall. Their
contractions pushes food down. You will be
accustomed to this soon and even think this
as a lullaby. So Goodnight and see you
tomorrow in the abdominal cavity!
Select your Route for Day 2
• Here are three routes you can chose for Day
2. You can chose ONE of them.
Route No.1: Visiting the stomach (highly
recommend)
Route No.2: Visiting the liver & gall bladder
Route No.3: Visiting the pancreas
All three routes will meet in Duodenum
later.
DAY 2
From Esophagus to Small Intestine
(Duodenum)
Equipment required: life jacket,
protective clothing (for acid and
enzyme protection), safety
helmet
Route
No.1
Stomach
Route
No.2
Live &Gall
bladder
Next Station:
Route
No.3
Pancreas
A Good morning!
• Good morning, everyone! Thank you for
choosing Route No.1. Just want to remind
you: for today’s journey, protective jacket
for acid protection is extremely important!
Now let’s start our busy day! Today we will
travel mainly on train!
Stomach
Danger coefficient: 4W
(cardiac)
• Tourists will enter a J-shaped organ, which
is stomach.
• The first area you’ll enter is cardiac
sphincter. This is a band of muscle which
closes off the top of stomach, and prevents
the stomach acid from entering the
esophagus.
Check again: Do you have your protective
jacket on? We’ll soon enter a place which
may digest your proteins if you have no
protective device.
• Now tourists will enter the main part of the
stomach. You will feel that the it is churning
here. Please hold the handle well! The
reason stomach churns is for physical
digestion of food.
☆Interesting spot: We will have our lunch in
this “revolving restaurant”! Haha! (P.S. The
food is brought from the outside world. )
• After lunch, we will visit places that are a
little bit “disgusting”. (Be prepared!)
• The physical digestion of churning results in
a product called acid chyme. (You see,
protective jackets for acid protection is
essential.)
• As we move down the stomach, we will
meet another enzyme called gastrin. It is a
hormone which is produced in the lower
part of stomach. Gastrin enters the
bloodstream and will later stimulates gastric
glands in the upper part of stomach to
produce pepsinogen and hydrochloric acid
(HCl). HCl is also the main component of
gastric juice. It gives the gastric juice an
acidic pH. It reacts with pepsinogen to
produce pepsin in the stomach.
• When people eat a “rich” meal, meaning we’ve
hade too much protein, Dr. Gastrin, a hormone
will come to help. He will inform the upper part of
the stomach to transform pepsinogen into pepsin,
who is a good assistant in protein digestion.
• HCl can burn the lining of stomach. As a result, an
enzyme called mucous is produced to protect the
stomach lining. If one part does get burned
unfortunately, it’s called ulcer.
How to cure Stomach Ache?
1. Stop eating for a couple of hours to see if
your stomach ache goes away.
2. Slowly start drinking clear liquids to see if
your stomach can handle them.
3. Try ginger to reduce nausea.
4. Take an antacid.
5. Get plenty of rest.
• Here is the last part of the stomach. It is
called pyloric sphincter. It is a band of
muscle which closes off the bottom of the
stomach. It allows small amounts of chyme
to enter the intestine.
• You’ve now finished visiting the stomach.
We will meet others in the duodenum soon.
Liver
Danger coefficient: 2W
• Welcome to one of the most important
organs, the liver. This covers the biggest
area in the digestive system. It has at least
five functions in the body. This is a quite
crucial place. Don’t touch anything without
permission here, please. This place is highly
protected.
L-Factory
 In the morning, we’ll visit the famous factory in the
liver. We will travel mainly on boat. Here is the
schedule.
 Firstly, we will visit the Bile department, in which
the bile is produced. Bile is very important to the
body. It is not an enzyme, but it helps to break
down fats into fat droplets during the process of
emulsification.
 Next stop is the Blood Department. We’ll see
workers detoxifying the blood by converting
poisonous substances to harmless substances.
L-Factory
 Then we’re going to see the old blood cells being
destroyed and hemoglobin are converted to
glucose.
 Workers will also show us how to make blood
proteins from amino acids. They’ll also show the
process of deamination. This is when they making
urea from the breakdown of amino acid.
☆Next part requires much of your participation. You
can try to store glucose as glycogen. Instructors
will teach you the process. This is worth a try.
Gall Bladder
Danger coefficient: 2W
 After lunch at the liver, we’re now setting out for
the gall bladder.
 Gall bladder is not a big territory. However, it’s a
military base. It will support the other parts of the
system by sending them enough bile. When you
arrive, you’ll see there are huge oceans on it. This
is true because gall bladder takes the role of
storing the bile, which we just saw in the liver.
Don’t walk to any other area without permission.
This is a serious place. Hopefully, we can interview
some soldiers or working crews here.
 It’s time for us to leave when you see a crew of hormones
coming. They are CCKs (cholecystokinin). They come to
inform the gall bladder that it should release some bile to
the intestines. You’ll hear them talking really strange. Here
is the translation of their speech: We come from the
pancreas and we got the message from the officials——
Captain Partially Digested Proteins and Major Mr Fats. The
intestines now need your supply. Please support.
 Therefore, the gall bladder act at once. They send bile to
the small intestine to support. We’ll travel along with
them to the duodenum.
Pancreas
Danger coefficient: 3W
• Welcome to Pancreas. This place is famous
for its agricultural exports. You’ll find its
products everywhere in the intestines. Its
enzymes and sodium bicarbonate are
healthy and green. They’re very popular
here.
Pancreas Farm
• This farm plants various kinds of enzymes
for the digestion of carbohydrates, lipids,
and proteins.
• It produces a kind of pancreatic juice, which
is made up of pancreatic amylase (digesting
carbohydrates), trypsin (digesting
proteins), lipase (digesting lipids), and
sodium bicarbonates (neutralizing the pH in
the blood).
Do you Know?
• How does trypsin work?
• It breaks down protein into peptides.
• How does pancreatic amylase work?
• Like salivary amylase, it also breaks down
starch into maltose.
• What about lipase?
• It uses the fat droplets, which has been
emulsified by the bile, and digests it into
fatty acids and glycerol.
Insulin——
The hero who saved the WORLD
• Insulin is a hormone which helps to lower
the blood sugar level in the body by making
glucose into glycogen. It can control the
diabetes.
• Sir Frederick Grant Banting, (November 14,
1891 – February 21, 1941) was a Canadian
medical scientist, doctor, painter and Nobel
laureate noted as the primary discoverer of
insulin. His dog was his first diabetes
“patience”.
• Biosynthetic "human" insulin is now
manufactured for widespread clinical
use using recombinant DNA
technology. More recently, researchers
have succeeded in introducing the
gene for human insulin into plants and
in producing insulin in them, to be
specific safflower. This technique is
anticipated to reduce production costs.
• As you’ve noticed, most of pancreas’ famous
exports are enzymes. Therefore, make sure
you’ve wore the special jacket in the market
to prevent yourself from being digested!
☆By the way, if you are interested in those
products, you can by some as souvenir.
They’ve been put into special boxes. After
that, we will go to Duodenum to meet
everyone else.
Duodenum
• Hello, everyone! Nice to see you altogether
here. You probably have noticed that there
are many tiny finger-like projections in the
duodenum. They are called villi. This is one
of the characteristics of the small intestine.
On these villi, there are even tinier
microvilli. Therefore, you will feel very
warm and comfortable to accommodate in
the duodenum tonight. Have a good dream!
See you tomorrow!
DAY 3
From Duodenum to Anus
Equipment required: special
jacket(for enzyme protection)
The LAST day in the digestive tract
• Good morning. This is your last day of the
journey. However, we guarantee you that
this will be an exciting day as well. We will
visit on buses mainly. Please never get off
the bus without permission!
• Let’s get started Right NOW!
Duodenum
Danger coefficient: 3W
• Last night we just talked about the villi and
microvilli.
• Within each villus are very small blood vessels and
a small lymph vessel called lacteal. The lacteal
absorbs the fluid and returns it into the veins.
• Duodenum is the first 10 inches of the small
intestine, so you are now in the territory of lower
abdominal cavity. Although much digestion
happens here as well, its primary function is to
absorb nutrients.
Small Intestine
Danger coefficient: 3W
• The small intestine also secretes intestinal
juice, which is made up of maltase and
peptidase. Maltase is used for breaking
down maltose into 2 glucoses. Peptidase is
responsible for the digestion of peptide. It
digests peptides into essential amino acids.
• Please wear the protective jackets.
Otherwise, you would be digested and
become part of the digestive tract.
Speed up!
• The small intestine is very long, (about 7
meters) and it’s convoluted (folded). This
helps to increase the surface are. More
surface area means a higher efficiency for
absorption.
☆We will have a racing car competition since
we have such a long way to go! The
destination is the appendix.
Appendix
Danger coefficient: 1W
•You will reach an intersection later.
This is the appendix, the junction of
the small intestine and large intestine.
•The function of appendix is still
unknown. What a mysterious place!
Large intestine
Danger coefficient: 2W
• This place is not as disgusting as you thought. It’s
responsible for absorption of water from
undigested food and some vitamins.
• There lives one species of bacteria called E. Coli
bacteria in the large intestine. They are actually
quite helpful. E. Coli produces some vitamins,
amino acids, and other valuable substances. It also
helps to metabolize the undigested food. They
provide vital services.
Embarrassment
• The biggest weakness of the E. Coli is that it
sometimes may bring embarrassment.
• When the bacteria consume the substances that
were not digested earlier, they give off odorous
molecules that caused the characteristic odor of
feces, or “passing gas”.
• Be careful: The air here is not very good… I’m
sure that you would prefer staying in buses indoor
than enjoying the “fresh” air outside…
Pelvic Cavity
Danger coefficient: 2W
• In the afternoon, we will visit the last part of
our trip, pelvic cavity, which includes the
rectum and anus.
• Rectum is the enlarged portion of large
intestine. It stores the waste temporarily.
• Anus is also called “anal sphincter”. It allows
undigested wastes (poop) to exit the body.
Thus, it is the gate to your world. All
undigested food will exit the body through
elimination, or defecation.
•A plane will be
there to take you
out of the
digestive tract.
What a fantastic three-day trip!
What are you waiting for?
Email to sign up NOW:
lovingdigestive@vivian.com
Sources come from:
www.wikipedia.org;
www.bing.com
&
Mr. Heard’s notes