Saliva: Production, Function, And Lack Of
Saliva, the clear fluid that kickstarts digestion even before food reaches your stomach, is often taken for granted when it comes to oral health considerations.
When people talk of oral health, they are, in fact, talking about gums and teeth.
Meanwhile, saliva, the watery substance that keeps your mouth moist, cool, and comfortable, is often and rather wrongly placed on the sidelines.
Production
A healthy body continuously makes saliva throughout the day. Chewing is what mainly stimulates saliva production. Therefore, the more you chew, the more amounts of saliva is produced. The production of saliva mainly happens in the salivary glands in your cheek, which sits at the bottom of the mouth, near the bone of your jaw.
Function
Apart from preserving the necessary moist environment of the mouth, saliva plays many essential roles in many fundamental oral processes. Among the most fundamentally prominent of which includes:
- promoting initial chemical digestion of food
- cleaning food debris and bacteria in the mouth
- aiding in basic oral activities like tasting, chewing, and swallowing
- actively fighting mouth-dwelling bacteria and pathogenic microorganisms
- actively preventing tooth decay and gum disease
Lack Of
While saliva production is constant throughout the entire day, it peaks during the afternoon and drops at night during sleep. Because everybody literally is a little different to everyone else, what is considered normal when it comes to daily amounts of saliva produced varies by quite a bit. This said, most people produce somewhere around 2 to 4 pints of saliva in a day.
Xerostomia happens when the body is unable to produce even the minimal amount of saliva necessary to make for proper oral health environment. Otherwise known as dry mouth, chronic xerostomia easily results in oral health complications starting with tooth decay and gum disease when left untreated.
Dentist Gold Coast
It is best if you consult with your local Main Beach dentist at Main Beach Dental when experiencing xerostomia or any other unwanted oral health conditions. Providing only high quality dentistry to the local Gold Coast Community and its surrounding regions, Main Beach Dental is a practice built on years of dental experience and the most relevant dental technology.
Claim your FREE dental consultation by calling us at 07 5503 1177, or simply by booking online.