This is a nice confirmation of something I’ve suspected. That some relatively large molecules pass into the body unchanged in “digestion”; many with biological activity. We all know this from the use of medicines, many of which are fairly large molecules and expected to be absorbed unchanged; yet somehow many folks think things like DNA and RNA and Proteins are all completely and perfectly converted into “raw materials” prior to any getting in…

But it’s just not so.

Digestion, like most processes in our bodies, is an evolved process that is “just good enough” and then doesn’t waste any more energy than needed. Energy being a vital resource, and typically in short supply, to living things. We have various energy conservation strategies. It is so important that most species to NOT evolve a large brain as it is a waste of energy. Humans are very unusual in that regard, but…