Biology Forums - Study Force

What does the term emulsify mean in fat digestion?

breaks apart, breaks down.

it's also what soap does to the dirt/oil on your skin!  it emulsifies it so it comes off & goes down the drain.

Kinda like the fat in your body.  You want it to go down the drain & not hang around!

In fat digestion, emulsify = break down.

Fats break down into fatty acids and glycerol.
The emulsification serves to make the molecules smaller and easier to digest as it moves through the digestive system.

Bile produced by the gallbladder passes down the common bile duct, through the sphincter of oddi into the small intestine.  The bile mixes with food and breaks apart the fat molecules so that the digestive enzymes can break them down more easily.

Emulsify does **not** mean to break something down--at least, not exactly.  What the bile does is to make fats, which are normally not soluble in water, more able to be mixed in with the water in your digestive system.  This allows them to be contacted more by the enzymes in your digestive system which actually break down the fats.