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Digestion and Absorption of Lipids-1

Lipid digestion poses unique challenges as lipids are not water-soluble like carbohydrates and proteins. The mouth, stomach, and small intestine all play roles in breaking down lipids through mechanical and enzymatic processes. In the small intestine, bile emulsifies lipids and pancreatic lipases further break them down so products can be absorbed. These products are then incorporated into chylomicrons for transport through lymph vessels and the bloodstream. Infants have adaptations like increased lingual and gastric lipases as well as lipases in breastmilk to help digest lipids in their diets.

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Samuel Agulue
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535 views3 pages

Digestion and Absorption of Lipids-1

Lipid digestion poses unique challenges as lipids are not water-soluble like carbohydrates and proteins. The mouth, stomach, and small intestine all play roles in breaking down lipids through mechanical and enzymatic processes. In the small intestine, bile emulsifies lipids and pancreatic lipases further break them down so products can be absorbed. These products are then incorporated into chylomicrons for transport through lymph vessels and the bloodstream. Infants have adaptations like increased lingual and gastric lipases as well as lipases in breastmilk to help digest lipids in their diets.

Uploaded by

Samuel Agulue
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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DIGESTION AND ABSORPTION OF LIPIDS

Lipid digestion and absorption pose some special challenges. Triglycerides are large molecules, and unlike carbohydrates
and proteins, they are not water-soluble. Because of this, they cluster together in large droplets when they are in a watery
environment like the digestive tract. The digestive process has to break those large droplets of fat into smaller droplets
and then enzymatically digest lipid molecules using enzymes called lipases. The mouth and stomach play a small role in
this process, but most enzymatic digestion of lipids happens in the small intestine. Thereafter, the products of lipid
digestion are absorbed into circulation and transported around the body, which again requires some special handling
since lipids are not water-soluble and do not mix with the watery blood.

1. Lipid digestion in the mouth


A few things happen in the mouth that start the process of lipid digestion. Chewing mechanically breaks food into smaller
particles and mixes them with saliva. An enzyme called lingual lipase is produced by cells on the tongue and begins
some enzymatic digestion of triglycerides, cleaving individual fatty acids from the glycerol backbone.

2. Lipid digestion in the stomach


In the stomach, mixing and churning helps to disperse food particles and fat molecules. Cells in the stomach produce
another lipase, called gastric lipase that also contributes to enzymatic digestion of triglycerides. Lingual
lipase swallowed with food and saliva also remains active in the stomach. But together, these two lipases play only a
minor role in fat digestion (except in the case of infants), and most enzymatic digestion happens in the small intestine.

Figure 1. Overview of lipid digestion in the human gastrointestinal tract.

3. Lipid digestion in the small intestine


As the stomach contents enter the small intestine, most of the dietary lipids are undigested and clustered in large
droplets. Bile, which is made in the liver and stored in the gallbladder, is released into the duodenum, the first section of
the small intestine. Bile salts have both a hydrophobic and a hydrophilic side, so they are attracted to both fats and water.
This makes them effective emulsifiers, meaning that they break large fat globules into smaller droplets. Emulsification
makes lipids more accessible to digestive enzymes by increasing the surface area for them to act (see Fig. 2 below).
The pancreas secretes pancreatic lipases into the small intestine to enzymatically digest triglycerides. Triglycerides are
broken down to fatty acids, monoglycerides (glycerol backbone with one fatty acid still attached), and some free glycerol.
Cholesterol and fat-soluble vitamins do not need to be enzymatically digested (see Fig. 2 below).

4. Lipid absorption from the small intestine


Next, those products of fat digestion (fatty acids, monoglycerides, glycerol, cholesterol, and fat-soluble vitamins) need to
enter into the circulation so that they can be used by cells around the body. Again, bile helps with this process. Bile salts
cluster around the products of fat digestion to form structures called micelles, which help the fats get close enough to the
microvilli of intestinal cells so that they can be absorbed. The products of fat digestion diffuse across the membrane of
the intestinal cells, and bile salts are recycled back to do more work of emulsifying fat and forming micelles.

Figure 2. Lipid digestion and absorption in the small intestine.

Once inside the intestinal cell, short- and medium-chain fatty acids and glycerol can be directly absorbed into the
bloodstream, but larger lipids such as long-chain fatty acids, monoglycerides, fat-soluble vitamins, and cholesterol need
help with absorption and transport to the bloodstream. Long-chain fatty acids and monoglycerides reassemble into
triglycerides within the intestinal cell, and along with cholesterol and fat-soluble vitamins, are then incorporated into
transport vehicles called chylomicrons. Chylomicrons are large structures with a core of triglycerides and cholesterol and
an outer membrane made up of phospholipids, interspersed with proteins (called apolipoproteins) and cholesterol. This
outer membrane makes them water-soluble so that they can travel in the aqueous environment of the body. Chylomicrons
from the small intestine travel first into lymph vessels, which then deliver them to the bloodstream.
Chylomicrons are one type of lipoprotein—transport vehicles for lipids in blood and lymph.
Figure 3. Structure of a chylomicron. Cholesterol is not shown in this figure, but chylomicrons contain cholesterol in both
the lipid core and embedded on the surface of the structure.

Special adaptations for lipid digestion in infants


Lipids are an important part of an infant’s diet. Breast milk contains about 4 percent fat, similar to whole cow’s milk.
Whether breastfed or formula-fed, fat provides about half of an infant’s calories, and it serves an important role in brain
development. Yet, infants are born with low levels of bile and pancreatic enzyme secretion, which are essential
contributors to lipid digestion in older children and adults. So, how do babies digest all of the fat in their diet?
Infants have a few special adaptations that allow them to digest fat effectively. First, they have plenty of lingual and
gastric lipases right from birth. These enzymes play a much more important role in infants than they do in adults. Second,
breast milk actually contains lipase enzymes that are activated in the baby’s small intestine. In other words, the mother
makes lipases and sends them in breast milk to help her baby digest the milk fats. Amazing, right? Between increased
activity of lingual and gastric lipases and the lipases contained in breast milk, young infants can efficiently digest
fat and reap its nutritional value for growth and brain development. Studies show that fat digestion is more efficient
in premature infants fed breast milk compared with those fed formula. Even pasteurized breast milk, as is used when
breast milk is donated for feeding babies in the hospital, is a little harder to digest, because heat denatures the lipases.
(Infants can still digest pasteurized breast milk and formula; they’re just less efficient at doing so and absorb less of the
products of triglyceride digestion.)

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