Saliva is an important sign of a healthy body. But we don’t pay much attention to saliva because we don’t know the role that saliva plays to keep our body work normally. Saliva is created by six salivary glands in our mouth. Your saliva contains components like magnesium, calcium, potassium, sodium and proteins that help in maintaining your oral health. Although these components in saliva are in little amount, the components are still vital for sustaining your oral health. If you too don’t know much about the importance of saliva, listed below are the benefits for you to know.
Overall Good Oral Health
Saliva protects the teeth by providing them with a thin protective shield. This thin shield of saliva defends teeth against bacteria and tooth decay. As stated above, there are antimicrobial components in saliva that help to kill germs in the mouth. Saliva prevents the seepage of small debris of food in the mouth; this food debris could harm you by causing tooth decay. Saliva also helps to rebuild the tooth enamel with the help of minerals it contains and prevents the breakdown of enamel caused by the acids in the mouth.
Better Taste of Food
Whenever we fall in love with a food or drink, the taste is the element that creates the magic. But what makes us sense the taste, did you ever give it a thought? The taste buds in the mouth help to sense the taste of a food or a drink. But for the taste buds to sense it, the food must be moist. The saliva is the only part that helps the food to be moist because of the moisture in it. The taste makes you feel about eating more of excellent-tasting food.
Chewing with Ease
Chewing food is the process done by teeth. But to swallow food, you need to break food down into small particles. The food needs to be softened and moist to swallow it smoothly. So the saliva moistens the food and makes it easier to chew and swallow. Then the tongue helps the moist food to get beneath the teeth. Imagine if you had to eat a hard and completely dry food item; it would’ve been nearly impossible!
Better Digestion
We saw how saliva helps you swallow food easily into the esophagus. Saliva contains enzymes amylase, also called ptyalin. It helps the starch to reduce into sugars such as maltose and dextrin that is reduced further into the small intestine. In other words, saliva also makes the digestion process simpler.
Saliva may not be the one thing that you may worry about when you think of oral health, but it does help a human body to work normally. You now know what the importance of saliva in your body is. So see to it that you maintain your saliva levels. Not sure how? Talk to our dentist to find some easy ways out.
