BiologyCode 5090
Absorption and assimilation
What this topic asks you to be able to do
- State that the place where nutrients get absorbed is the small intestine
- Know that absorption, which uses diffusion, osmosis and active transport, means nutrients passing from the intestines into the cells that line the gut and then on into the bloodstream.
- Understand that assimilation means cells taking in nutrients from the blood and putting them to use.
- Describe how a villus is built and what capillaries and lacteals do within it.
- Explain why it matters that villi and microvilli increase the ileum's internal surface area
- Understand that both the small intestine and the colon absorb water from their lumen, but that the small intestine takes up most of it
- State that the hepatic portal vein's function is to be the main route into the liver for the molecules and ions absorbed in the ileum