Are you aware of the role of saliva in your oral health? Let’s explore the benefits of saliva and how it promotes dental health.
What is Saliva?
Saliva is a clear liquid made up mostly of water. It comes from six prominent glands in your mouth. The benefits of saliva are limitless. Saliva does a lot of essential things to keep your mouth healthy. It also helps you talk, chew, and swallow food easily. But it can be a real issue when you don’t have enough saliva or there’s a problem, which we call dry mouth.
Benefits of Saliva
Let’s explore the benefits of saliva and how it helps your mouth stay healthy:
Protect Gums
Protecting teeth and gums is one of the best benefits of saliva in dental health. Saliva has proteins and minerals that help strengthen and protect our teeth from decay and gum problems. It also fights off bad breath by getting rid of bacteria.
Secure Dentures
Saliva is a helpful friend for people who wear dentures when they age. Securing dentures and keeping them in place are also the benefits of saliva. So we don’t have to stress about dentures falling out as we age.
Prevent Dental Diseases
The benefits of saliva include fighting off bacteria to prevent dental problems. Dental diseases are no fun, and they happen when we don’t have enough saliva and the special substances it has.
When your mouth is dry, you’re more likely to have a lot of sticky dental plaque, leading to gum issues and cavities. Saliva contains enzymes like lysozyme, which break down bacteria, and lactoferrin, a protein that stops bacteria from taking away our iron. This is important because bacteria need iron to grow and make us sick.
Saliva also has antimicrobial peptides that can kill bacteria by poking holes in their walls, causing them to dry out and die. So, having enough saliva is like having a superhero in your mouth, protecting you from dental troubles.
Keeping Your Teeth Healthy
Saliva does something essential. It helps stop our teeth from getting holes, known as tooth decay. You might be surprised to hear that teeth can get holes even though they’re super tough.
When we eat, the food gives the bacteria in our mouths the power to make acid. This acid is like a bad guy because it weakens our tooth covering, called enamel, letting the bacteria sneak inside our teeth.
One of the benefits of saliva is that it can fight the acid by raising our mouths’ pH levels. That’s why our mouths make more saliva when we eat.
And if your enamel is already weak, your saliva can help fix it. Enamel needs certain things, like fluoride, calcium, and phosphate, to stay strong. Saliva carries these things to your teeth to help make them strong again.
Cleaning Up Wastes
Among the benefits of saliva is keeping our mouth tidy. It clears out bacteria, viruses, and yeast that can stick to our teeth, gums, and tongue, which can cause different health problems, not just in our mouth.
Shielding and Guarding
Saliva is like a protective shield. It helps stop the acids in our food and drinks from hurting our teeth and soft tissues. Swallowing saliva also helps protect our digestive tract, like the tube that connects our mouth to our stomach, by keeping it safe from irritating stuff and preventing heartburn.
Prevent Tooth Decay
Saliva is the superhero against tooth problems. Bacteria in our mouth make acids that can harm our teeth, causing cavities. But saliva fights back by washing away those acids or making them harmless. It even has calcium and phosphate to fix our teeth and strengthen them again.
Healthy Plague
You might think all plaque is bad for your teeth, but proteins in saliva make a good kind. After you’ve cleaned your teeth and got rid of the bad stuff, a protein in saliva called pellicle covers your teeth.
The pellicle helps gather loose bacteria in your mouth, making it easier to eliminate them. It’s like sweeping grains of sand into a pile for easy cleaning and protects your teeth from acid damage.
Healing Wounds
If you accidentally bite your lip or get a canker sore, saliva is like a handy helper. It has special things that speed up the healing process. These things help fix and regrow damaged tissue, making you feel better faster.
Conclusion
Hope now you are aware of the benefits of saliva in oral health. Saliva protects you from several oral diseases. Always follow a healthy diet and stay hydrated to prevent dry mouth. Contact Dentalsway for more information on maintaining oral health. We are happy to help you.
