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Stomach and Churning
By
Ryan Esdale and Tom Fielder
Why?
The stomach churns to digest food – this is
the mechanical breaking down of food (not
the chemical).
How?
The wall of the stomach has layers of muscle.
The churning action is made by the outer
wall of muscle.
When?
Churning is an involuntary action that occurs
about every 20 seconds.
Why? (again)
Churning helps mix the food with gastric juice
to break it up into smaller pieces. Only
when the food is sufficiently broken up can
it leave the stomach and move into the
small intestine.
If it all goes wrong!!
Dysmotility means ‘slow or unco-ordinated
movement’ and is when the stomach takes too
long to empty. Instead of the food moving down to
the small intestine, it just sits there. As a result,
you might feel queasy or have a heavy, bloated
stomach, as if you have eaten a huge meal when
you have only eaten normally. Sometimes, in bad
cases, the stomach’s normal churning process can
almost go into reverse and the food is forced back
up!!!