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Updated: May 31, 2025
*Other Effects of the Gastric Juice.*—In addition to digesting proteids, the gastric juice brings about several minor effects, as follows: 1. It checks, after a time, the digestion of the starch which was begun in the mouth by the saliva. This is due to the presence of the hydrochloric acid, the ptyalin being unable to act in an acid medium.
Tobacco seems to be a direct stimulant to the salivary apparatus. Habit blunts this effect only to a limited extent. The old smoker has usually some increase of this secretion, although he does not expectorate. But if he does not waste this product, he swallows it, it is said, in a state unfit to promote digestion. The saliva owes its peculiarity to one of its components, called ptyalin.
The saliva is a colorless liquid without taste or smell. Its principal element, besides water, is a ferment called ptyalin, which has the remarkable property of being able to change starch into a form of cane-sugar, known as maltose. Thus, while the food is being chewed, another process is going on by which starch is changed into sugar.
While the mastication is going on the saliva becomes mixed with the food. In the saliva is the ptyalin, which begins to digest the starch. Starch that is well masticated is not so liable to ferment as that which gets scant attention in the mouth. Starches and nuts need the most thorough mastication.
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