This story is part of a series exploring human anatomy and physiology complexities. Each story in this collection showcases discoveries reshaping our understanding of the body's inner workings, ...

A risky but often lifesaving surgery that removes damaged parts of the small intestine can leave patients facing a new threat: serious liver damage with no available treatment. Now, scientists have ...

When it comes to intestines, it sure seems like two are better than one. I asked my friend Franck Carbonero why that is. He’s a microbiologist at Washington State University. He studies the bacteria ...

Chemical digestion is one of the six main functions of your digestive system. This system consists of your digestive or gastrointestinal tract and accessory organs. During chemical digestion, your ...

The gut microbiome is an important ecosystem of microbes that lives in each one of us, and its strength affects our overall health. However, the small intestine is an underappreciated part of the gut ...

Malabsorption refers to the reduced absorption of nutrients from the intestine into the bloodstream. It can affect the body’s ability to absorb all nutrients or some specific types of nutrients.

The US humorist Christopher Morley once described the human body as “an ingenious assembly of portable plumbing”. He wasn’t wrong: from our cardiovascular and lymphatic systems to our guts and urinary ...