How does milk digestion happen?

The human digestive system is a very long tube, going from the mouth to the anus with the main function of absorbing food, breaking down and absorbing nutrients, removing unnecessary and toxic substances from the body. body. The digestive system of children is more special than adults in terms of anatomy and physiology. So how does milk digestion take place and how long does it take for babies to digest milk?

The time to digest human food depends on many different factors, individual and there are differences between men and women. After putting food into the body, it takes about 6 to 8 hours for them to go from the stomach to the small intestine.
In the small intestine, food will be broken down through digestive enzymes into nutrients and absorbed through the intestinal mucosa. The rest of the food continues to move to the colon (large intestine) for further digestion, absorbing almost all of the water and some remaining micronutrients, eventually leaving only the residue and is excreted in the form of feces. The time for food to move in the large intestine is more than 24 hours before being discharged outside.
Under normal physiological conditions, the time it takes for food to move through the gastrointestinal tract is as follows:
Transit time through the stomach is about 2 to 5 hours Time to move through the small intestine is about 2 up to 6 hours The transit time through the large intestine (large intestine) is about 10 to 59 hours The total time it takes for food to move through the entire digestive tract is about 10 to 73 hours. Therefore, from the time the food is passed through the mouth to break down and absorb nutrients to the time it is expelled in the form of feces, it takes about 2 to 5 days. Some factors that can affect the rate and time of digesting food include:
Amount of food consumed Type of food eaten Gender Gender Metabolism of each person Having certain diseases digestive tract.

Milk is now considered one of the most nutritious and easy-to-use foods. However, few people know that human ancestors about 10,000 years ago were completely unable to digest milk. And now there are nearly 2⁄3 adults in the world (mainly concentrated in East Asia and South Africa) more or less affected by lactose intolerance syndrome.
Milk is easy to digest or not depends a lot on an enzyme called lactase. When entering the body, lactose is only secreted by a special enzyme, called lactase, in the small intestine, breaking down milk into the simple sugars glucose and galactose and then being absorbed into the body.
If the body lacks or does not excrete the enzyme lactase, the lactose in milk is not broken down, absorbed, it will move to the colon and be metabolized by the bacteria here. Therefore, people with lactose intolerance syndrome often have signs of flatulence, indigestion, abdominal distension and diarrhea ... when using cow's milk.

In general, it can take up to 12 hours to digest milk or dairy products. Meanwhile, the digestion time of regular juices only takes about 15 minutes. Therefore, whether milk is easy to digest or not, the answer is that milk is a relatively difficult food to digest. So how long do babies digest milk? To answer this question, we need to understand the ability to digest milk in this group of children.
Newborn's intestinal tract within the first 24 hours is completely free of bacteria. Starting from the 3rd day after birth, new strains of intestinal bacteria begin to multiply and develop strongly. In breastfed infants, beneficial intestinal bacteria strains such as Bifidus, B. lactis aerogenes, B. acidophilus often predominate because breast milk is rich in beta lactose and Bifidus factor, which are good for the growth of these bacteria. strains and simultaneously inhibited E Coli bacteria. In contrast, cow's milk contains a lot of alpha lactose which is good for the growth of E coli bacteria.
The beneficial bacteria in the intestinal tract play a very important role when digesting food, they participate in the synthesis of some vitamins (such as vitamins B, K), and the digestion of other substances such as protein, fat, and sugar. Therefore, intestinal dysbacteriosis will affect the ability to digest and absorb food in children.
In general, the digestive systems of infants and young children are not fully developed yet. However, the digestion time of breast milk is definitely faster and more tolerable than cow's milk or formula milk. The reason is because breast milk is both rich in nutrients and contains many protective factors for the baby's body, the degree of compatibility with the immature digestive system is higher, and therefore breastfed babies are less likely to have digestive disorders. and at the same time reduce the risk of other infections.

The digestion time of breast milk depends on how long the milk remains in the baby's stomach. Under normal conditions, about 25% of milk is absorbed directly in the stomach, the digestion time of breast milk in the stomach is about 2 to 2 hours and 30 minutes, while the digestion time of cow's milk in the stomach increases. up to 3-4 hours.
Then, about half of the milk moves down to the small intestine for digestion in about 45 minutes, this is the main stage for absorbing the nutrients in breast milk. Meanwhile, for formula milk the time to do the same work is up to 80 minutes due to more residue (unabsorbable) content, higher degree of milk precipitation and casein content (a proteins found in milk) are also more difficult to digest.