Do liquids get digested at the same rate as solid food, or do they flow through the digestive tract quicker?
In: Biology
Liquids do get through the digestive system quicker. Liquids don’t rely on the valve in your stomach that empties into your small intestine. As such, when people have disorders that slow down that valve (gastroparesis), they find that liquids are much more digestible. In particularly bad cases, they may go on an all-liquid diet.
I also note that digesting means breaking down substance so they can be absorbed. So water doesn’t really get digested at all–it’s just absorbed unchanged. And sugars are either already in their simplest form or easily broken down. So the most common liquids we consume are already digested before they get very far into the digestive system.
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