We touched on the topic of lingual lipase in the story about poorly digested food. There it was about babies who can only digest half of the fat from milk with the help of lingual lipase.
Adults do not know how to do that, but sometimes life forces them.
Lingual lipase is secreted either by the sublingual salivary glands, or literally by the papillae of the tongue. This enzyme breaks down triglycerides. That is, oil.
It is believed that the fat in our mouth can be digested by lingual lipase or bacterial enzymes, which swarm in abundance between the teeth and around the tongue, or even refluct, that is, belching from stomach. Many people have belching or heartburn, someone slightly regurgitates the food they have eaten, and you and I discussed the harmful effects of gastric enzymes on our throat.
So there is nothing to be surprised about - we may have enough gastric juice in our mouth to start digesting fat.
Yes, the stomach also contains lipase of its own production. It turns out that when we chew fat, it begins to be digested even in the mouth. Then this delicious lump of fat flops into the stomach and continues to be digested there.
The fact is that lingual lipase can work in the acidic environment of the stomach. That is, until the fatty lump reaches the intestines and gets under the action of pancreatic lipase, it will already be digested to some extent.
The problem is that the pancreas cannot always produce the right amount of lipase. Sometimes she is sick with cystic fibrosis and cannot squeeze enzymes out of herself.
The fat can then be digested to some extent by the lingual and gastric lipase. It is said that up to 40 or even 50% of fat can be digested in this way. Wonders. If you want to live, as they say, you will learn to digest fat with your tongue.
