December 23, 2024, 10:56:34 AM
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Topic: stomach acid  (Read 6361 times)

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Offline BaO

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stomach acid
« on: August 16, 2006, 08:16:52 PM »
what advantage HCl has over other acids or bases that it is placed in our stomaches?
« Last Edit: August 16, 2006, 09:42:10 PM by bao »

Offline Albert

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Re: stomach acid
« Reply #1 on: August 23, 2006, 07:56:33 AM »
Well, I'm not much of a physiologist, but, from a chemical point of view, nitric acid would be a too powerful oxidizing agent.

Offline sdekivit

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Re: stomach acid
« Reply #2 on: August 25, 2006, 04:49:25 PM »
i assume HCl is the most logical option for stomach acid since the extracellular Cl- -concentration is very high: 108 mM.

Then using the H+/K+-ATPase H+ and Cl- combine to form HCl in the parietal cells. More about the physiology about gastric acid production can be found at the most loyal friend of every scientist: wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastric_acid

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