Have you ever considered how important saliva is to your mouth and general health? Most people take this clear liquid in their mouth for granted and hardly consider it when they talk or think about their dental and oral health. However, those with dry mouth conditions or low-quality saliva understand the importance of every spit.

Saliva is a vital fluid in your mouth that can affect your oral health and overall body health. If you are mindful of your dental and oral health and want to understand how saliva works, this article is for you.

What is Saliva, and Where is it Secreted in the Human Body?

Saliva "spit" is an extracellular, clear fluid produced or secreted by several salivary glands around your mouth. The primary glands responsible for the secretion of most saliva quantities include the following:

  • Sublingual glands located underneath your tongue.
  • Parotid glands located around your cheeks area.
  • Submandibular glands located around your jawbone area.

Tiny tubes, known as salivary ducts, help carry saliva from the salivary glands to your mouth to keep it moist. Your salivary glands begin to produce saliva anytime you start chewing or even think about or smell the aroma of food. Generally speaking, an average healthy person can produce two to four pints of saliva daily, and your salivary glands secrete most of this saliva in the afternoon.

While it is 95% water, saliva contains other important components that help keep your oral tissues healthy and lubricate food for easy digestion. Some of these components or substances include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Proteins.
  • Electrolytes (phosphates, calcium, bicarbonate, potassium and magnesium).
  • Enzymes.
  • Mucus.
  • Minerals.
  • Nitrogenous compounds (ammonia and urea).
  • Immunoglobulins.

Healthy saliva is typically acidic, with a pH of 6-7, to allow it to break down food particles and keep harmful bacteria at bay. You should pay close attention to your mouth condition and salivation rate to maintain good dental and oral health.

When you notice your salivation rate is abnormal, meaning it is excessive or reduced, you should consult with a dentist immediately to help determine the cause of the abnormality.

Top Benefits of Saliva You Should Know

Understanding saliva's crucial role in a human's mouth and general body wellness is wise, even if you have no issue with your salivation rate. Here are some of the top benefits or advantages of saliva you should know:

It Helps Lubricate Your Mouth

One of saliva's most obvious advantages is its crucial role in mouth lubrication. When dehydrated, we all experience that dry feeling, but how many people pause their activities to consider whether their mouths are well-lubricated when they are not thirsty?

Most people do not know it, but saliva has a lubricating effect on our mouths. Without adequate saliva, eating, smiling, or talking could be challenging. It helps keep our lips, cheeks, and tongue from sticking together.

Due to the softness and vulnerability of mouth tissues, without adequate saliva in the mouth, it would be easy to injure them from the usual movement of teeth. Prolonged scraping of teeth against dry tissue in your mouth when talking or chewing could also cause sores or ulcers to develop.

That is why one of the indicators of dry mouth is cracked and dry lips. If your lips are dry or cracked, consult your dentist to help you pinpoint the cause of the issue.

It Aids in Digestion

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, once you smell the aroma of food or begin chewing, the salivary glands produce saliva to prepare your mouth for digestion. While chewing and swallowing food is the first step of the long digestion process, that would not be possible without saliva.

As you chew your food, saliva binds the broken particles into a soft "bolus," a sticky and slippery substance you can swallow easily. Without adequate saliva, it could be difficult to break down large bites, increasing your risk of choking when swallowing food.

Your saliva also contains amylase, an enzyme that helps break down complex carbohydrates and starch into sugars for easy absorption into your body.

You will probably have trouble chewing and swallowing if your salivary glands are not producing enough saliva to lubricate the food. When that happens, you should schedule an appointment with a seasoned dentist to help pinpoint the cause of your dry mouth condition for appropriate treatment as soon as possible.

It Helps Keep Plaque at Bay

Plaque is the sticky brownish or yellowish biofilm of harmful bacteria and food particles that sticks to the surface of teeth after eating. Plaque formation on the surface of teeth is normal, but leaving it unchecked or untreated could put you at high risk of developing cavities and other oral health issues like bad breath and gum disease.

Fortunately, saliva can naturally keep dental plaque at bay. Saliva helps form salivary pellicles, which act as an invisible barrier, preventing plaque build-up on the surface of your teeth. When combined with regular teeth brushing and flossing and regular dental check-ups, saliva can help protect the surface of your teeth from becoming a playing ground for harmful bacteria.

In addition, saliva contains crucial minerals like phosphate and calcium, which help remineralize and strengthen teeth to prevent cavity issues.

It Helps Neutralize Acids in Your Mouth

Aside from clearing lingering food debris and preventing plaque formation, saliva also helps buffer the acids in your mouth, which can break down your teeth' enamel and lead to cavities. Although saliva is acidic, too much acidity in your mouth can erode your teeth' enamel, making it challenging to chew food due to excessive teeth sensitivity.

Some of the common causes of high acidic pH levels in your mouth include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Tobacco smoking.
  • Stress.
  • Alcohol.
  • Overweight.
  • Spicy or fatty foods.
  • Coffee consumption.

Fortunately, your saliva contains several helpful compounds that can help buffer harmful acidic levels in your mouth, protecting the structure and integrity of your natural teeth. Some of these compounds include the following:

  • Bicarbonate.
  • Urea.
  • Phosphate.
  • Amphoteric proteins.
  • Histidine-rich peptides.

In particular, bicarbonate is the most crucial compound that helps buffer acids in your mouth because it spreads into the plaque build-up on the surface of your teeth, neutralizing its acidity. The bicarbonate can also form ammonia, an additional and much-needed buffer for neutralizing acidity in your mouth.

However, the buffering benefit of saliva is almost non-existent if the pace of saliva flow is low (unstimulated saliva). Aside from causing dry lips, reduced saliva flow can increase the effects of xerostomia (dry mouth), including cavities.

It Helps Keep Teeth Dentures in Place

Undoubtedly, missing teeth is an issue most people are not willing to live with their entire lives. Whether your missing teeth issue is due to an injury, decay, or disease, this dental problem is treatable, and dentures are one of the remedies. Dentures are dental appliances a dentist uses to replace a missing tooth or set of teeth to restore your oral health.

Depending on the number of missing teeth you want to fix, a dentist can recommend partial or complete dentures. In addition to restoring your teeth' functions, including the ability to chew and speak, dentures can also help boost your smile's appearance.

Although the dentist will use a metal framework to hold the dentures in their ideal place in the mouth, saliva also helps keep them in place because it creates suction between the dentures and gum tissues. Unfortunately, your salivation rate will reduce as you age, meaning you will have less saliva in your mouth to create the suction needed to hold the dentures in place.

In that situation, you should speak with your dentist to explore other supplement alternatives to improve your salivation rate and keep your dentures in place for several years. Aside from helping hold your dentures in place, saliva also functions as a lubricant to shield your gums from abrasion and irritation when you wear dental appliances.

It Has a Healing Effect

Another overlooked benefit of saliva is its sanitizing and healing effect. No wonder it is common for people in most cultures to apply saliva to wounded parts of their skin. Have you ever wondered why your tongue or gums heal fast after biting them accidentally? That is because saliva contains vascular epidermal and endothelial growth components that assist in repairing and regenerating the soft tissues of your mouth.

It Can Help in the Diagnosis of Various Medical Problems

Several scientists now recognize saliva as a diagnostic tool useful in large-scale epidemiologic research and disease screening. Saliva contains a number of biomarkers that medical professionals use to screen for various diseases, including diabetes, allergies, cancer, HIV, and others. Examples of these biomarkers include the following:

  • Antibodies.
  • Electrolytes.
  • RNA/DNA.
  • Proteins.

Using saliva as a diagnostic tool is also advantageous in several ways, for example:

  • Collecting saliva samples is non-invasive and painless for a patient.
  • There are fewer chances of infectious disease transmission.
  • More patients' acceptance compared to other common diagnostic means like blood or stool.
  • When you cannot visit a doctor's office for personal or household reasons, a physician can perform medical screening in the convenience of your own home using your saliva samples, which does not require any specialized training or on-site equipment to collect.

Causes and Remedies for Unbalanced or Abnormal Salivation

As you can see, saliva is a vital fluid that we all need for optimal dental and oral health. However, sometimes people can experience too much or less salivation due to several factors, which you will learn about below. The rule of thumb in this situation is to speak to a dentist whenever you are experiencing too much or reduced salivation to help you pinpoint the cause of the problem.

Explained below are two oral health issues you can experience due to unbalanced or abnormal salivation, their causes, and remedy options:

  1. Dry Mouth (Xerostomia)

Maintaining a steady flow of saliva in your mouth is vital to keeping your gums, teeth, and entire body healthy. Generally speaking, xerostomia, or dry mouth, is not a disease. Instead, it is often a sign of an underlying health issue that causes reduced salivation.

However, it is also possible and natural to experience reduced salivation as you age. Therefore, consulting a dentist to determine the cause of the issue is a brilliant idea. As the name suggests, you have a dry mouth if your salivation rate has reduced. If you have a dry mouth issue, you will often experience the following symptoms:

  • Dry and sore throat.
  • Trouble chewing and swallowing food.
  • Sticky saliva.
  • Bad breath.
  • Cracked lips.
  • Taste disorders.

Ensure you speak with your dentist when you detect any of the above symptoms. Aside from old age, other possible causes of xerostomia include:

  • Certain medications, including analgesics, antihistamines and antidepressants.
  • Dehydration.
  • Cancer treatment procedures like chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
  • Chronic (lifelong) health conditions like diabetes, HIV, depression and stress.
  • Severe head or neck injuries.
  • Mouth breathing.

In severe cases, dry mouth could cause joint pain, skin rash, dry eyes, and dental cavities. Fortunately, a dentist can explore several treatment options to reduce the effects of xerostomia based on the cause of your unique underlying health condition. Below are some common remedies your dentist could recommend to lessen the uncomfortable symptoms of xerostomia:

  • Avoid foods with excessive salt.
  • Avoid alcohol and caffeine.
  • Use alcohol-free mouthwashes.
  • Chew sugar-free gum.
  • Avoid smoking or using tobacco-related products.
  • Sip water regularly.
  • Use a humidifier if you often breathe through your mouth, especially at night.
  • Surgical salivary gland repair.
  • Saliva production stimulators, like Pilocarpine and Cevimeline.

While these are the common remedies for dry mouth, it is a preventable oral health issue. Adopting proper oral hygiene practices and scheduling frequent dental appointments with your dentist can help prevent dry mouth issues. During your routine dental appointments, your dentist can detect emerging dental or oral health issues before they become problematic.

  1. Excessive Saliva in the Mouth

Although drooling in toddlers and infants is natural and healthy, an adult should worry when he/she experiences excessive saliva flow. Aside from causing embarrassment, excessive saliva in your mouth (hypersalivation) in an adult could be due to nervous system disorders and infections. The primary causes of hypersalivation in most adults include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Pregnancy.
  • Gastroesophageal reflux (GERD).
  • Allergies.
  • Tonsils or sore throat.
  • Cavities.
  • Sinus and mononucleosis infection.
  • Exposure to certain toxins, like pesticides.
  • Anticonvulsant and certain tranquilizer drugs.

In these situations, the problem of hypersalivation will go away when your doctor treats the underlying condition, causing excessive saliva flow in the mouth. If you have hypersalivation, your dentist will recommend a course of treatment based on the underlying cause of the issue. Below are some common treatment options for hypersalivation:

  1. Home-based Treatment

If you have a temporary hypersalivation issue caused by infection or cavity, your dentist will treat these issues first. Then, he/she will recommend home-based remedies like frequent teeth brushing and flossing. To help restore saliva balance in your mouth, the dentist could also recommend using alcohol-based mouthwashes to clean your teeth.

  1. Medications

Your dentist could also recommend specific medications like Glycopyrrolate (Cuvposa) and Scopolamine to treat your hypersalivation issue. These medications are helpful because they work by inhibiting or reducing your rate of saliva production, reducing the accumulation of saliva in the mouth.

However, it is worth noting that using these drugs could cause side effects, including dizziness, frequent urination, blurred vision, and sleepiness.

  1. Injections

If your hypersalivation problem is constant, your dentist could recommend some Botox injections. A Botox injection into your salivary glands can inhibit chemicals that trigger these glands to secrete more saliva. Botox injection is a safe treatment remedy for hypersalivation, but its effects only last a month.

That means you have to schedule more appointments with the dentist for any future injections you could need.

  1. Surgical Procedure

In severe cases, surgical procedures could be necessary to treat a hypersalivation problem if other possible treatment options cannot help. Generally speaking, a surgical procedure could be necessary if your dentist must remove a salivary gland or reroute a salivary duct, causing excess salivation and saliva accumulation in your mouth.

After this treatment, your dentist could recommend using alcohol-based mouthwashes for speedy recovery because alcohol has helpful drying effects. If you do not already have a family dentist, ensure the one you consult for dental and oral health services is licensed, experienced, and reputable.

Find a Credible Dentist Near Me

As you can see above, you can never undermine or overlook the importance of saliva in your mouth. When you notice symptoms of hypersalivation or xerostomia, you must speak with your dentist to help pinpoint the root cause of the problem. The sooner you talk with a dentist, the higher your chances of treating the issue for a healthy smile.

At Beach Dental Care Anaheim, we comprehend how important it is to maintain good dental and oral health throughout your lifetime. Our reliable and credible team of dentists takes every oral and dental health issue seriously, regardless of its severity.

If you are experiencing a salivation abnormality, we invite you to call us at 714-995-4000 for a cost-free consultation with our understanding dentists.