WHY doesnt the stomach digest itself ???

If you were to put a piece of zinc into a cup of gastric acid, the zinc would dissolve. It's therefore not surprising that the stomach's digestive juices can make short work of anything we deliberately feed to it. So its logical to ask this question, "what if the digestive juices digest the skin cells of our stomach ???"

The answer is :
In a manner of speaking, it does. The stomach is lined with a dense layer of cells, called epithelial cells, which continually SACRIFICE themselves in order to protect deeper layers of the stomach wall. Each minute, the surface lining sheds some 500,000 cells, and it completely replaces itself in three days.





The main components of digestive juices are a protein-digesting enzyme called pepsin and hydrochloric acid. The pepsin is relatively harmless, but hydrochloric acid is extremely caustic and can dissolve tissue in hours. If too much is secreted, the regenerative properties of the epithelial cells may be overcome, the wall breached, and an ulcer produced.

Not only the epithelial tissue is present to protect but there is MUCOUS CELLS which does alkaline mucous secretions which again protects our stomach lining ...This picture shows the mucous cells present in our stomach !!!