Episode 137: The Digestive System
The Science of Everything Podcast
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The Importance of a High Surface Area
The reason why there is such an elaborate structure is solely to increase the surface area. This is important because the absorption of the material that's in the process of digestion has to occur across a surface. You can think of the surface area as kind of being like an open doorway. Each area of surface is a new doorway via which molecules can be transported from the lumen into the epithelial cells and then ultimately into the bloodstream. So all of that dramatically increases the surface area so that we can digest our food in a timely fashion.
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