LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Bile: Liver
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Bile is a useful waste product of the body. It is secreted by the liver as the final product of the breakdown of the hemoglobin pigment of worn out red blood cells. It is useful in that it serves to allow the absorption of fats in the intestine into the bloodstream. It is bright green when secreted, but bacteria in the bowel break it down into compounds that are yellow to dark brown, depending on how long the bile stays in the intestine. Thus diarrhea - a condition where material moves through the system very rapidly - is characterised by green stools. Thus green stools don't really mean much at all, though they worry parents.
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Bile is a thick yellow fluid made by the liver. It helps you digest the fat in your diet. Between meals, liver bile is stored in the gallbladder, a little sac beneath the liver. When you eat, the gallbladder squeezes and releases the stored bile salts into the small intestine to help with digestion. After food is digested and absorbed, the bile salts are reabsorbed at the end of the small intestine and recycled to be used over and over again. When the gallbladder is surgically removed, the liver must make more bile salts, and more are released between meals beca use there is no place to store them.
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Bile acts to some extent as a detergent, helping to emulsify fats (increasing surface area to help enzyme action), and ... aids in their absorption in the small intestine. The most important compounds are the salts of taurocholic acid and deoxycholic acid. Bile salts combine with phospholipids to break down fat globules in the process of emulsification by associating its hydrophobic side with lipids and the hydrophilic side with water. Emulsified droplets then are organized into many micelles which increases absorption. Since bile increases the absorption of fats, it is an important part of the absorption of the fat-soluble vitamins D, E, K and A. Besides its digestive function, bile serves as the route of excretion for the hemoglobin breakdown product (bilirubin) created by breakdown of erythrocytes, which are conjugated by glucuronidation in the liver ; it also neutralises any excess stomach acid before it enters the ileum, the final section of the small intestine. Bile salts are also bacteriocidal to the invading microbes that enter with food.
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Bile acids are produced in the liver from cholesterol and secreted into the small intestine to help with the absorption of dietary fat and cholesterol. Bile acid sequestrants bind bile acids in the small intestine and carry them out of the body. This causes the body to use more cholesterol to make more bile acids, which are secreted into the small intestine, bound to bile acid sequestrants, and carried out of the body. The end result is lower cholesterol levels. Bile acid sequestrants ... prevent absorption of some dietary cholesterol.
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Bile is a substance manufactured by the liver that aids in the digestion of food. Bile ducts are channels that carry the bile from the liver to the small intestine. Like the tributaries of a river, the small bile ducts in the liver converge into two large bile ducts called the left and right hepatic ducts. These exit the liver and join to form the common hepatic duct. The gallbladder, which concentrates and stores the bile, empties into the common hepatic duct to form the common bile duct. Finally, this large duct connects to the small intestine where the bile can help digest food.
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Bile esculin agar is a medium used to identify group D streptococci. This group of bacteria have the ability to grow in the presence of bile, an emulsifying agent produced in the liver. Group D streptococci ... have the ability to hydrolyze esculin. This hydrolysis of esculin turns the medium black and denotes a positive test. Other bacteria capable of growing in the presence of bile do not turn the medium black. A variation of this medium uses sodium azide to inhibit the growth of all other Gram-positive bacteria and Gram-negative bacteria.
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