Saliva and it’s importance to you today and in the future as well.
I know this may be hard to believe, but even since I was in dental school back in the dark ages I felt that Saliva had a lot to do with whether you got cavities or not. For as long as I can remember patients have been telling me that they brush and floss and still get cavities. Now there are a lot more factors that go into cavities, but time has proved me right and salivary flow is a very important part in your body’s ability to prevent cavities. At Southern California Dental Health Associates we try to educate all our patients on cavity prevention.
How does Saliva help prevent cavities? Simple. Whenever your mouth is exposed to sugar the bacteria interact with it to create an acid which removes minerals from your teeth. This is called demineralization (see how fancy we get with worlds in dentistry). Saliva contains minerals which can replace the minerals leached out by the acids. This is called remineralization. The more saliva in the environment the better it is for your teeth. That is why we strongly recommend that if you can’t brush your teeth after a meal (or after drinking any soda or other acidic beverage) that you chew some sugarless gum for at least 5 minutes. This promotes salivary flow which in turn will feed the remineralization process.
Salivary testing can now help doctors treat other areas of your body due to the high content of proteins and other medical markers found in your saliva. Saliva can already tell us much about your body. Testing of your saliva can yield hormone levels for estradiol, progesterone and testosterone to name a few. Also, saliva testing is used for drug testing of both legal and illegal drugs. As of now Salivary diagnosis is possible for oral cancer, breast cancer, salivary gland diseases, hepatitis, HIV and Sjogren’s syndrome.
At Southern California Dental Health Associates we will stay on the cutting edge of knowing what Saliva can tell us about your health.