VIVO Pathophysiology
Pregastric Digestion: Introduction and Index
An animal's or person's state of health is only as good as its nutritional state, and nutrient intake depends on normal pregastric function. Maintaining an adequate intake of nutrients is often hampered by diseases affecting pregastric function, and a solid understanding of pregastric function is necessary not only to correct diseases affecting those systems, but also to ensure nutritional support in the face of all diseases.
As important as inadequate food intake is, the most prevalent nutritional disease of humans and pets in developed countries is obesity, and remarkable progress has been made in recent years to explain some of the long-standing mysteries about how we control how much we eat.
Core concepts in pregastric digestion are presented as the following topics:
- Control of Food Intake
- Physiology of Taste
- Salivary Glands and Saliva
- Prehension, Mastication and Swallowing
- The Esophagus
Advanced and supplemental topics related to pregastric physiology:
- Genetics of Food Intake, Body Weight and Obesity
- Taste Preferences
- Sweet Proteins: Miraculin, Monellin, Curcuin, Thaumatin, ...
- Teeth and Mastication
Send comments to Richard.Bowen@colostate.edu