Villi Vanilli
Thirty square metres of shag carpet. Please wipe your feet.
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Your guide to Villi Vanilli
The small intestine is the long, coiled middle of the route: several metres of it. Its lining is folded, the folds are covered in finger-like villi, and the villi are covered in even tinier microvilli. All that texture adds up to about 30 square metres of surface, roughly the floor of a studio apartment.
This is where most of the tools do their work and where nearly everything useful gets absorbed: amino acids, sugars, fatty acids, vitamins and minerals. Lactobacilli like Ace & Deuce, Pickles and Rhamny hang out here. Whatever can’t be digested, like fibre, carries on to Downtown.
Villi and microvilli give the small intestine about 30 m² of inner surface. Most digestion and absorption happen here.
You may have heard “a tennis court”. The latest measurement says about 30 m²: more studio apartment than tennis court.
Locals and staff
Fewer microbes live here than Downtown, but the lactobacilli like it, and it’s where Sporty hatches.
Ace & Deuce
Pickles
Rhamny
Para
Gass
Sporty
Protease
Amylase
Lipase
Lactase
Alpha-galactosidase
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Next stop down the gut · Stop 7
The Wall
The gut lining. One cell thick and renewed every few days. L-glutamine is a main fuel for its cells.
