Library · Physiology
How the stomach empties
Make it clearer
The stomach does not release food all at once. It pushes it out through the pyloric sphincter, the muscular ring that closes its outlet, and that ring only lets through liquids and particles small enough to pass. It is a strainer that only lets through what has already been broken down.
Before that there is mechanical work. The stomach churns its contents back and forth and turns the food bolus, the mass of food that arrives from the mouth and the esophagus, into chyme: a slurry that the small intestine can absorb more easily.
The speed is not fixed. Emptying can slow with fat and acid in the duodenum, the first stretch of the small intestine, and also with stress, with exercise and with several hormones.
And what does not leave, stays: chyme that does not empty keeps churning until it too can pass through the pylorus.
In brief
The stomach empties its contents through the pyloric sphincter, which only lets through liquids and particles small enough to pass.
First it churns the contents back and forth, turning the food bolus into chyme, which the small intestine absorbs more easily.
A strainer that only lets through what has already been broken down.
Emptying can slow with fat and acid in the duodenum, with stress, exercise and several hormones.
Chyme that does not empty keeps churning until it too can pass through the pylorus.
Sources (1)
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, StatPearls PublishingPhysiology, Stomach, StatPearlsPublished
This page explains the topic in general terms; it does not tell anyone what treatment to follow.
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