Preview

Digestion of Starch by Salivary Amylase

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
628 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Digestion of Starch by Salivary Amylase
The role of salivary amylase in the digestion of starches remains controversial. In the absence of pancreatic amylase, the key enzyme for starch digestion, salivary amylase may well represent a potential compensatory alternate pathway for the digestion of amylose, amylopectin, and glycogen.
Clinically significant depression of pancreatic amylase occurs in chronic pancreatitis, pancreatic resection, pancreatic neoplasm, cystic fibrosis, and other causes of pancreatic insufficiency. Quantitation of salivary amylase in these diseases has yet to be performed. It is also unclear whether the presence of starch in a meal protects salivary amylase from inactivation by the acidic gastric environment.
In the first six months of life, pancreatic amylase is very low or absent. Despite this physiologic pancreatic amylase deficiency, young infants seem to tolerate moderate amounts of starches in the diet
(1). Fi,rthermore, during acute diarrhea in infancy, soluble polymers of glucose derived from corn are well tolerated. The use of polymers of glucose have the advantage of providing the infant with potential mucosal injury with a carbohydrate source that can be readily absorbed and has a high caloric density with low osmolality (2). It seems, therefore, that salivary amylase and glucoamylase of the small intestinal brush border can compensate for physiologic amylase deficiency in infancy, even during diarrheal episodes.
In this issue of Digestive Diseases and Sciences,
Fried, Abramson, and Meyer (3) utilized a selective salivary isoamylase inhibitor (4, 5) to quantitate the amount of salivary amylase in postprandial jejunal fluid. This is a comparatively simple method using a wheat isolate that inhibits 88% of salivary amylase and 27% of pancreatic amylase. Standard curves of amylase inhibitor activity were constructed by mixing known concentrations of pure salivary and
Address for reprint requests: Dr. E. Lebenthal, Children's
Hospital.of

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Amylase Trials

    • 306 Words
    • 2 Pages

    4. Based on the information you have learned about the digestive system, describe the optimal pH for the action of pancreatic amylase. Do classroom experimental results seem to support this finding? Why might there be…

    • 306 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Biol 111 lab report water

    • 656 Words
    • 3 Pages

    If the amylase only partly digests the starch, I would expect to see a faint color change as well as a small presence of glucose inside the intestine.…

    • 656 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Discussion post Unit 2

    • 266 Words
    • 1 Page

    For this initial discussion post I will be exploring the Pancreas. It is a glandular organ, which is located posterior and inferior to the stomach in the upper left side of the abdominal cavity. The Pancreas actually serves as two glands such as a hormone-producing endocrine gland and a digestive exocrine gland. The pancreas produces several types of enzymes that break down carbohydrates, proteins, fats (lipoids) and nucleic acid. The Pancreatic amylase is a enzyme that breaks down carbohydrates, the Pancreatic proteases breaks down proteins, Nucleases that break down nucleic acids, and the Pancreatic lipase breaks down fat. These processes allow the intestines to absorb nutrients (Taylor, n.d).…

    • 266 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gvt Task 2

    • 895 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Digestive enzymes include salivary and pancreatic amylase, present in the mouth and small intestine, maltase and lactase which are also present in the small intestine and are involved with carbohydrate digestion. Pepsin which is present in the stomach and chymotrypsin present in the small intestine both involved with…

    • 895 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Biology Eei Enzymes

    • 6364 Words
    • 26 Pages

    Enzymes are biological catalysts. They speed up chemical reactions in all living things, and allow them to occur more effortlessly, without them we would not be alive. “Catalyst” denotes a substance that has the ability to increase the rate of a chemical reaction, and is not changed or destroyed by the chemical reaction that it accelerates (MicroTak, 2002). The enzyme Amylase speeds up the breakdown of starch into simple sugar; this reaction happens in the mouth and is the start of chemical digestion. Starch cannot pass through the lining of the intestine; it is too big (REFER TO FIGURE-31). The enzyme in question here is called Amylase; it catalyzes the hydrolysis of the polysaccharide starch (amylose) to the disaccharide maltose (Miller, 1992 ).…

    • 6364 Words
    • 26 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Amylase is the type of enzyme that is used to convert starch into glucose so that it can be absorbed. Once the glucose has diffused into the blood stream it is carried to cells to be broken…

    • 1348 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Unit 21 Task 2 P2 M1

    • 2436 Words
    • 25 Pages

    Starches Effects Of Shortage: If an individual does not consume enough starch in can result in the protein being used for energy rather than for growth and repair. Food Sources: Starch can be found in pasta, rice, bread, potatoes and chapattis. The Risks: If an individual consumes too much starch it can result in the blood sugar levels increasing and an increase in weight.…

    • 2436 Words
    • 25 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Upon ingesting food into the mouth, salivary glands secrete saliva which contains the digestive enzyme ‘Salivary Amylase’. This has a neutral pH and…

    • 1910 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    This study does provide potential success for preterm infants with oromotor dysfunction in helping with non-nutritive sucking and oral feeding. NTrainer patterned orocutaneous therapy can be useful to help accelerate the development of non-nutritive sucking and ability to oral feed. Even though NTrainer therapy showed increases in non-nutritive suck and oral feeding in preterm infants with oromotor dysfunction, further research will be useful in providing more valid and conclusive evidence of the effectiveness of using NTrainer therapy in a clinical…

    • 630 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    amylase lab report

    • 1766 Words
    • 8 Pages

    The purpose of this lab experiment is to investigate factors that can affect the porcine pancreatic amylase enzyme activity in different environments such as the temperature, pH and also how being stored in extreme temperatures can affect the activity of the amylase. The activity of the amylase is going to be determined by the presence or absence of starch in the samples over time. There are some hypotheses on the Effects of temperature and pH; as I add the amylase to the starch in different temperatures the reaction’s rate increases in high temperatures; I belive that the amylase will work better. As the environment grows warmer, the amylase is going to become more energetic and more effective. Amylase is affected by environmental pH. I predict that the amylase activity will work best at a pH 7. As the pH changes from this point I predicted that the amylase activity is going to decrease and eventually stop. If I boiled and froze some amylase solution, and try to digest starch with at it at room temperature, I predict the previously-boiled and frozen amylase will not…

    • 1766 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    To test the effect of a substrate concentration on enzyme activity, the amylase enzymes were combined with a different substrate concentration (starch) and the rate of the reaction was determined with the aid of I2kI. If starch was detected, the solution turned to dark blue; if the starch was already broken down, then reaction stayed colorless. To test the optimal PH, the starch and a buffer were combined at a specific PH level and the rate of reaction was tested. To determine the optimal temperature of amylase enzyme, the solution and amylases enzyme were held at various temperatures and the rate of reaction was determined.…

    • 2678 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    “When it was said that it was done to please a woman, there ought perhaps to be enough said to explain anything; for what a man will not do to please a woman is yet to be discovered” (Chestnutt 30). In the “Passing of Grandison” and “Editha” both authors bring to light the ideas of women and the impact they have on the actions of men. Both Charity and Editha have used their influence as women to convince their partners, Dick and George, of completing tasks they would not have done, other than for the love a woman.…

    • 1051 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Eman

    • 1277 Words
    • 6 Pages

    8. John Pope, D. O 'Brien, & Susanna McColley. “How Cystic Fibrosis affects digestion and the pancreas.” 12 August 2011 Web. <https://myhealth.alberta.ca/health/Pages/conditions.aspx?hwid=ug1494&>…

    • 1277 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Amylase is an enzyme in human saliva and in other organisms and its substrate is starch. When the active site of amylase binds with the starch, hydrolysis takes place. When the hydrolysis (the breaking of a chemical bond with the insertion of the ions of a water molecule) of starch is complete you are left with a disaccharide called maltose.…

    • 1062 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Pancreas Research Paper

    • 1299 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The pancreas is probably one of the few organs that we really do not pay close attention to, but it is a very vital organ. The pancreas is a part of the digestive system. It is the largest organ in its system. It plays life sustaining roles in the regulation of food digestion and blood glucose levels. The anatomy of the pancreas helps us to understand each part and each section and how it pertains to the body. It is also very to study the physiology, because it tells us the functions of the pancreas and how it works. Disease states and laboratory testing are important because it they give us the different aliments and the different testing required to properly diagnose and treat a patient. In this paper, we will discuss the…

    • 1299 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics