The Digestive System and Body Metabolism: How They Work Together

The digestive system and body metabolism are sometimes thought to be the same thing.

This conclusion is a mistake, however, as Tamara Duker Freuman, a registered dietician in New York City specializing in digestive disorders, points out. She says it is a common misconception that if you have fast digestion, you also must have a fast metabolism.

According to Science Clarified, digestion is the necessary first step for the food we eat. It involves the breaking down of food and processing it so it can be used by the body and the production and elimination of waste.

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Metabolism refers to the chemical processes that happen in the body where complex molecules from food are used to produce energy.

One example of metabolism is what happens when you eat a spoonful of sugar. Inside the body, sugar molecules are broken down into even smaller molecules, a process that releases energy that can be used to keep the body warm or build more molecules in the body.

The digestive system and the metabolism work together to ensure the body is always supplied with enough energy to operate background bodily functions and perform daily tasks, explains New Health Advisor.

Since metabolism is a very complicated process, many people choose to oversimplify it and think in terms of how easily you can gain or lose weight.

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The speed of your personal digestive process is measured by complete transit time between when food enters your mouth until the time it is excreted from the body as feces.

Digestive rate is dependent on many factors including your diet and how much you exercise, says Tamara Duker Freuman.

The metabolic rate can be measured by how many calories your body expends over a specified time period. It too is affected by many factors like how well your thyroid functions.

The means to speed up your rate of digestion are not the same as those to speed up metabolism.

For instance, eating a high-fiber diet will speed up your digestion as food will move through the GI tract quickly, but it does not speed up metabolism.

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