How does fat digestion differ from that of protein?

Question

Dylan Andrews · Accepted Answer

Protein digestion vs Fat Digestion:-

Protein Digestion-

When your food protein contacts the acidic environment of your stomach, the tightly folded protein begins to relax.

As this happens, a digestive enzyme in your stomach clips the long chain of the protein’s amino acids into shorter pieces called peptides.

The peptides travel to your small intestine, where different digestive enzymes – secreted from your pancreas – break down the peptides into even shorter chains and eventually into single amino acids.
These individual amino acids are now ready to be absorbed by the walls of your small intestine.

Fat Digestion-

Fats from foods consist primarily of triglycerides, three fatty acid molecules bound to a glycerol backbone.

A small amount of digestion of your food triglycerides begins in your stomach, although most occurs in your small intestine.
In your small intestine, the fat molecules mix with a substance called bile, secreted from your gallbladder, that emulsifies the fat particles, or makes them more water-soluble.

Your pancreas secretes a digestive enzyme, called lipase, into your small intestine, where it acts on the emulsified triglycerides.

Lipase digests each triglyceride into its three individual fatty acids plus a glycerol molecule.
These fat components are now small enough to undergo absorption.

To summarize, different enzymes are involved in fat and protein digestion. Digestion occurs in both the stomach and the small intestine for proteins but primarily occurs in the small intestines for fats. The end products of fat digestion are fatty acids and glycerol. The end products of protein digestion are amino acids.

To learn more, check out this resource from Purdue University.

Hudson Dean · Answer

undefined Fat digestion primarily occurs in the small intestine, where bile from the gallbladder emulsifies fats into smaller droplets, allowing enzymes like lipase to break them down into fatty acids and glycerol. Protein digestion begins in the stomach, where pepsin breaks proteins into smaller peptides. In the small intestine, pancreatic enzymes further break down peptides into amino acids.