Within the digestive system we find numerous organs and tissues that perform functions of great importance. Inside the stomach, perhaps the most important organ in this entire system, we find gastric juice that we can describe as a liquid naturally produced by various stomach cells to promote digestion and processing of the bolus when it reaches the stomach cavity. This gastric juice has a high level of acidity, that is, a pH that goes between 1 and 2 on the scale and this means that what reaches the stomach can be more easily disintegrated and assimilated by the body.
Gastric juice is a light-colored liquid that is produced naturally in the stomach, inside it, more precisely by the parietal cells found in the stomach epithelium. Gastric juice is made up of several elements: hydrochloric acid, potassium chloride, sodium chloride, water, and various enzymes that also help the process of digestion or food processing. These enzymes are actually activated with the combination of the aforementioned chemicals and the entire resulting product acts as a digestive.
Gastric juice is produced and secreted into the stomach in several phases, which is why its generation is considered a complex phenomenon that is not only limited to the moment after food intake. In this sense, it is estimated that one third of the total gastric juice produced by the stomach at a time is secreted before eating or eating food begins and that is the feeling of empty stomach or hunger that one feels when he wants to eat. The participation of the nervous system and the senses is vital here since they act by generating desire or stimuli for certain foods that favor the gastric juice to begin to act. Most of the gastric juice, about sixty percent, is released at the time of processing of the food that has already been ingested, as soon as the stomach begins to distend. Finally, the remaining ten percent is released when the rest of the bolus begins to travel through the small intestine.
