All about the esophagus

The esophagus is a digestive organ located in the chest.

Food moves from the mouth through the esophagus when a person swallows and the upper esophageal sphincter opens.

The upper esophageal sphincter is located where the throat and esophagus meet and only opens through eating food or vomiting.

The food then passes into the stomach through muscular contractions by the esophagus otherwise known as “peristalsis.”

Above where the esophagus and the stomach meet is another muscle band called the lower esophageal sphincter.

The lower esophageal sphincter is contracted so that food and stomach acid does not flow up from the stomach, through the esophagus and into the mouth (also known as acid reflux or GERD.)

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 16th, 2012 at 6:03 pm and is filed under The Salgi Foundation - Esophageal Cancer Awareness, Early Detection & Research. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Comments are closed.

%d bloggers like this: