Question:
What happened to the 1/2 cup of olive oil that I drank the night before?
I studied every flush carefully and, while I saw some stuff that looked like grapefruit bits, I don't recall seeing anything that I could identify as the olive oil.

Remember, there has been nothing else in my system but the grapefruit and olive oil since Monday Night.



Answer:

There are 2 possibilities:

Oil was absorbed
or
Oil was expelled with the flush liquid.



- First it gets mixed with stomach digestive juices
(water, HCl - hydrochloric acid, pepsin...)
- Those stomach digestive juices breaks it into small drops.
- Then it gets mixed with bile in small intestine (suppose bile ducts are open :-)

- Then it gets absorbed (inside small intestine and large intestine)into your blood stream. Blood carry it to the liver, where it get transformed into substances that body may need. Then, it is carried away by blood to all parts of your body.


Ok lets turn to science:



DEFINITIONS
DIGESTION = the process by which food is broken into smaller molecules and prepared for absorption.


ABSORPTION = the taking of substances into the internal environment of the body. (In this case from the digestive tract.)


Secreted in the digestive juices are enzymes (organic catalysts) that speed up the processing.


What are these things called "enzymes"?

ENZYMES = organic catalysts (organic here means composed of carbon atoms.

Organic chemistry is the study of carbon-containing compounds).

CATALYST = a substance that speeds up the rate of a chemical reaction
without itself being consumed in the reaction.


It so happens that all enzymes are made out of protein. (Dr. J.B. Sumner, biochemistry professor at Cornell, won the Nobel Prize for this discovery many years ago).
http://asci.uvm.edu/nusc43/DIGES.htm



THE STOMACH
There are seven digestive functions of the stomach:


- Storage
- Mixing
- Transport
- Alcohol absorption
- Secretion of hydrochloric acid (HCl)
- Secretion of mucin
- Secretion of pepsin/protein digestion



DEFINITIONS RELATED TO HORMONAL CONTROL OF GASTRIC SECRETION

HORMONE = a control substance released directly into the blood by a gland to act on another part of the body (may also be called a chemical messenger).

GASTRIN = a hormone made of protein released from the lining of the stomach.


-Stomach

-Holding tank (~4 cups or 1 litre)
-food remains 2-4 hours
-mechanical mixing of food
-chyme: mixture of stomach secretions and food
-Secretions: In response to the hormone gastrin
-HCl (acid): chemical and mechanical breakdown of protein
-pepsin: enzyme that chemically breaks down protein
-Absorption:
alcohol
- Alcohol can be rapidly absorbed from the stomach. That explains why
alcoholic drinks have such an immediate effect on people. But it appears that the effect is stronger in women than men because an enzyme (alcohol dehydrogenase) is found in the stomach of men that breaks down alcohol.


Less of this enzyme is found in the stomach of women so they absorb most of the alcohol consumed.
(Very minor amounts of fat)


The partly digested food leaves the stomach and enters the duodenum where it encounters secretions of the gall bladder and the pancreas.


After a meal, the gall bladder releases stored bile, especially if the meal contains fat.

People who have their gall bladder removed (cholecystectomy) can usually still eat moderate amounts of fat, since the flow of bile continues directly from the liver into the duodenum.


Thus the problem of mixing dietary fat in the watery environment of the intestine is solved by emulsifying the fat with bile.


Pancreatic juice is deposited in the duodenum via ducts and contains
enzymes that act on all three groups of nutrients: starches, lipids and proteins.


It is the exocrine portion of the pancreas that produces enzymes. The
endocrine part of the pancreas produces insulin.

Pancreatic amylase performs the same action as salivary amylase.



The whole intestine is anatomically divided as follows:

Small Intestine:

-Duodenum
-Jejunum
-Ileum



Large Intestine:
- Colon (ascending, transverse & descending)
- Rectum
- Anus (the final sphincter)



Digestion: small intestine

Main site of digestion and absorption
-95% of digestion
-food remains 3-10 hours

Secretions:
-In response to the hormone cholecystokinin
pancreas releases amylase (chemical breakdown of carbohydrates)
gall bladder releases bile (emulsifier of fats)

In response to the hormone secretin
pancreas releases bicarbonate (HCO3: neutralizes acidic chyme from stomach)



Bile is synthesized in the liver from cholesterol and stored in the
gallbladder. Most elements in the body are in a watery environment. Bile is an emulsifier, which breaks down fat globules into smaller particles so that they can mix with this watery environment and be acted upon by enzymes.


SUGAR DIGESTION:

The final digestion of the disaccharides known as maltose, lactose and sucrose into monosaccharides occurs in the wall of the intestine.


PROTEIN DIGESTION

Movement of materials against the intestinal wall brings them in contact with aminopeptidase’s, dipeptidases, and other peptidases, which break the remaining peptides (short chains of amino acids) down to individual amino acids.



References:
1. "Fats that Heal and Fats that Kill" by Dr Udo Erasmus pg. 47
2. http://asci.uvm.edu/nusc43/DIGES.htm