Talk:Gastrointestinal tract

Proposed merge with Intestine
These articles are not exactly the same, but the intestine article is subsumed within the gastrointestinal tract article. 'Intestines' could be integrated in an artful way, and without a merge, these articles will simply exist to mirror and duplicate each others' content, without benefiting readers. Thoughts? LT910001 (talk) 04:34, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅ There are already informative pages on the subdivisions. There does not need to be a separate page for intestine(s). It seems that Human gastrointestinal tract already fills the role of being the overarching article which sums up and branches out. More effort should be put into cleaning that up into a tighter article and making the "sub-"articles better. The Haz talk 18:17, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Digestion info needed or redirect
A separate page is badly needed for digestive system. DIgestive system All other systems have their own entry page. Digestive system at the moment redirects to 'digestion' which is just a process of the digestive system. Infobox on this GI page refers to digestive system - which doesn't exist anywhere Iztwoz (talk) 12:44, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Agree that this is an extremely confusing state of affairs. We do need a separate digestive system article. A good place to start may be splitting some of the content (esp. the summary of human organs) from the Digestion article into a separate Digestive system article. --LT910001 (talk) 21:28, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

I'll drink to that! Iztwoz (talk) 07:33, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

proximal vs. distal
Medical articles about the colon refer to "proximal vs. distal adenomatous polyps" -- which parts of the colon are considered proximal or distal (in relation to what?) -- please add these terms to the article. -71.174.175.150 (talk) 17:37, 16 November 2014 (UTC)


 * 'Adenomas were classified as “proximal” if in the cecum, ascending colon, hepatic flexure, or transverse colon; they were classified as “distal” if in the splenic flexure or below.' -71.174.175.150 (talk) 17:51, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Function gives the wrong impression
90% of the text under subheading function in 2015-Mar-13 version is about immunity. That may gives the wrong impression, as if the intestine is more about defense than digestion. Should be remedied by adding meaningful detail about digestion here.

Hose as a synonym for intestine
This article mentions bowel, hose or gut as synonyms for the word intestine. Is this meaning described in any dictionary? Jarble (talk) 07:37, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Cannot find any ref so If it is somewhere it must be so obscure as to be not worth mentioning. shall remove --Iztwoz (talk) 07:45, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Gastrointestinal tract
GI tract is a very small page with little other info that can easily be merged to - and so making a non human-specific page Iztwoz (talk) 09:21, 15 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I can envision a day when the content development would be such that they should be separate articles, because the GI tract of ruminants and the GI tract of humans could each have a lot of content, and trying to combine them in a single article might not be advisable. That's why I would lean toward keeping them separate since they already are. In WP:Summary style, the parent article could eventually grow to a decent overview, with {Main} links to the various child articles (human, ruminant, etc). However, if they do merge, then a hatnote saying "For the gastrointestinal tract of other animals, see Gastrointestinal tract (disambiguation)" would also work OK. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:12, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Uh huh. See Gastrointestinal tract (disambiguation). That didn't last long, as it was deemed by portions of the community to be an invalid dab page.
 * Y'all must have also missed these discussions:
 * Talk:Gastrointestinal tract/Archive 1
 * Talk:Gastrointestinal tract (formerly Talk:Gut (anatomy))
 * So no sooner do we find a compromise consensus, than someone slaps a merge tag on it. I'm not surprised, and can't see how the no-dab hardliners didn't see this coming.
 * You know we could stop wasting time with this issue if only someone would write the damn article. Wbm1058 (talk) 17:29, 16 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I also note that this proposal would basically just reverse the changes endorsed by this discussion. wbm1058 (talk) 01:08, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi wbm1058 just to note the discussion you linked is nearly 7 years old. There has been a general move away from human specific pages (where feasible) since that time. Cheers --Iztwoz (talk) 21:13, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
 * But as you can see, it's not feasible here, as humans aren't protostomes nor deuterostomes, as you can read here: Embryological origins of the mouth and anus So, no, don't merge them.--109.60.101.229 (talk) 07:34, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

"In contrast"
in the 2nd paragraph, the 3rd sentence is: "In contrast, the human digestive system comprises the gastrointestinal tract plus the accessory organs of digestion (the tongue, salivary glands, pancreas, liver, and gallbladder)." in contrast to what?? i very quickly read thru the Talk page, and i'm guessing this odd phrasing is a result of merging and un-merging and merging, etc., etc. but, as it is now, it doesn't make any sense.Colbey84 (talk) 01:50, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi Colbey84 In contrast with the GI tract - the digestive system...etc --. So far nothing has been merged and unmerged just talked about. If you can find better wording - feel free. Cheers Iztwoz (talk) 21:03, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 12 October 2016

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved. I'm just closing this myself, as the week-long listing has elapsed and I was the only editor to express any objections. wbm1058 (talk) 16:31, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Human gastrointestinal tract → Gastrointestinal tract – Pages merged but wrong way round – Iztwoz (talk) 11:48, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
 * This is a contested technical request (permalink). wbm1058 (talk) 13:12, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

I am making a technical objection here, because I object to the way that the content was merged. I think we should come to an agreement on how to merge the content first. Also, there is considerable history at the target which needs to be preserved, due to all the content reshuffling. wbm1058 (talk) 13:12, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

More specifically, the lead overemphasizes humans. It should give a more broad overview of the topic which includes animals. wbm1058 (talk) 13:21, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Regarding preservation of article history: Therefore, we should move Gastrointestinal tract back to Gut (anatomy) to clear the space for this move. – wbm1058 (talk) 13:45, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
 * 16:11, 4 January 2016‎ moved page Gut (anatomy) to Gastrointestinal tract: Per move discussion

In an earlier iteration of this ongoing drama, a disambiguation page was created to fill the void left behind when gastrointestinal tract was moved to human gastrointestinal tract, and the animals were covered by gut (anatomy). I've restored the dab to Talk:Gastrointestinal tract/disambiguation. It didn't last long, as it was deemed a broad concept, and thus inappropriate disambiguation. I want to assure that the article adequately covers the broad concept, in a manner that allows readers to quickly dispatch themselves to any related more specific topic that they may be looking for. wbm1058 (talk) 15:06, 12 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Support. Having reconfigured the content to define the proper scope for both humans and animals, I withdraw my objection and now support this move, but only if the content retains the current structure, or similar. Note to closing admin: please move Gastrointestinal tract back to Gut (anatomy) to preserve attribution for copied content and clear the space for this move. wbm1058 (talk) 21:11, 13 October 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Protein expression
This section is removed as speculative on functions and overly didactic on details per WP:NOTTEXTBOOK, #6-7. --Zefr (talk) 14:04, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Transcriptome analysis shows that 75% of all human proteins (n=19628) are expressed in at least one region of the GI tract. Only 1% of all genes showed expression limited to the GI tract, including genes primarily expressed in one or several of the tissue types present in the GI tract. The function of these proteins that are specifically elevated in the GIT are well in line with the features and functions of the different anatomical and functional regions of the GIT and include proteins involved in nutrient breakdown, transport and metabolism, the entero-endocrine system, host protection and the maintenance of tissue morphology.

Don’t read this article.
For the human digestive system see human digestive system and for the non-human animal digestive system see digestion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.31.10.98 (talk) 13:55, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
 * This article explains the intestines and not about the digestive system.Cwater1 (talk) 23:14, 22 January 2023 (UTC)