Final answer:
Bile salts c. decrease the size of fat droplets to aid in digestion by emulsifying lipids, which increases the surface area and accessibility for digestive enzymes in the small intestine.
Step-by-step explanation:
The correct answer to the question of how bile salts aid during digestion is: c. Decrease the size of fat droplets to aid in digestion.
Bile salts, which are produced in the liver and stored in the gallbladder, act as emulsifying agents in the digestive system.
They are critical for the digestion of lipids, primarily triglycerides, by emulsification. This process involves the breakdown of large lipid globules into several small globules.
Because bile salts have both hydrophilic and hydrophobic parts, they can interface with both water and lipids.
As such, bile salts disperse the lipids within the aqueous digestive environment, increasing their surface area and making them more accessible to the digestive enzymes like pancreatic lipase.
This enhanced accessibility greatly increases the efficiency of lipid digestion.
Emulsification by bile salts is crucial because it transforms the larger fat droplets into smaller droplets, which is key to ensuring that lipids can be efficiently broken down and absorbed in the small intestine.