How do you digest fats?

Answer 1

Lipase is the digestive enzyme that hydrolyzes fats. Fats are often large, complex molecules, and their digestion usually takes longer than that of simpler molecules like carbohydrates. Fats are also hydrophobic molecules, meaning that when they are placed in water, they clump together into large aggregates, reducing the amount of surface area exposed to water. The first step your body takes to digest fats is to break up these large clumps. Your body accomplishes this process using compounds called bile salts, which are produced by the liver. Bile salts dissolve the clumps of fat into tiny droplets.

The small droplets are often in the form of molecules called triglycerides, which is made up of a glycerol molecule and three fatty acids. Fatty acids are a type of molecule known as a carboxylic acid, which has a long chain of carbon atoms. The next step of digestion is to break these triglycerides into simpler molecules. Your pancreas produces an enzyme called lipase, which hydrolyzes triglycerides into monoglycerides (one fatty acid attached to a glycerol molecule) and free fatty acids.

The monoglycerides and fatty acids remain dissolved in bile salts and form small droplets known as micelles. As the micelles travel through the digestive tract, they come into contact with the cells that line the digestive tract, and these cells absorb them through their cell membranes.

After intestinal cells have absorbed the monoglycerides and fatty acids, they reassemble them into triglycerides, the form of fat most commonly found inside your body. For transport, your body packages triglycerides together with protein and cholesterol into particles called chylomicrons. The intestinal cells then secrete chylomicrons into the lymph vessels, which eventually flow into the bloodstream. Once fats are in your bloodstream, your body can transport them to wherever it needs them, breaking them down for energy or storing them as fat.

Answer 2

You eat it, it goes into your stomach, your stomach grinds it up, and enters the intestine.