Speaker 1: Welcome to brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey, rain stuff,
Speaker 1: Laura wollabo'm here. Saliva It's not the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that comes to mind often. Sure, you might notice it
Speaker 1: when you smell the smoke coming off of barbecue, or
Speaker 1: the lack of it when you're about to give a presentation,
Speaker 1: but a seemingly inconsequential thing like spit actually plays an
Speaker 1: important role in our health and in the way that
Speaker 1: our food tastes. Saliva is ninety nine percent water. The
Speaker 1: remaining one percent is made up of well lots of stuff,
Speaker 1: including digestive enzymes, uric acid, electrolytes, mucous forming proteins, and cholesterol.
Speaker 1: It's also home to more than seven hundred types of microbes,
Speaker 1: including bacteria and fungi. The actual makeup of our spit
Speaker 1: varies from person to person, and each person's saliva fluctuates
Speaker 1: due to factors like age, hormonal influences, and various stimuli.
Speaker 1: As is the case with mucus, our bodies are constantly
Speaker 1: producing saliva. Throughout the course of a day, your body
Speaker 1: churns out about two to four pints of it. That's
Speaker 1: one to two liters. Most of that sliva production occurs
Speaker 1: in the afternoon and tapers off at night when we
Speaker 1: tuck into bed. We don't completely stop salivating when we sleep,
Speaker 1: which explains why some side or belly sleepers wake to
Speaker 1: discover that they've drooled on their pillow. Saliva is produced
Speaker 1: in these salivary glands, which are found in the tissues
Speaker 1: of our mouth. These glands are made up of clusters
Speaker 1: of cells that secrete saliva through a series of collecting
Speaker 1: ducks out into the mouth. There are three major pairs
Speaker 1: of salivary glands. The parotid glands are the largest. They're
Speaker 1: located on both sides of your face in front of
Speaker 1: your ears. Each one produces about ten percent of your
Speaker 1: mouth saliva. The submandipular glands are the second largest. They're
Speaker 1: located under the jawbone, and the smallest are the sublingual glands.
Speaker 1: These almond shaped glands lie on the floor of the mouth,
Speaker 1: underneath the tongue. There are also smaller clusters of salivary
Speaker 1: glands in your upper digestive tract and esophagus. These secrete
Speaker 1: sliva with special enzymes that aid in digestion before the article.
Speaker 1: This episode is based on How Stuff Works. Spoke via
Speaker 1: email with Guy Carpenter, a professor of oral biology and
Speaker 1: an oral physiologist at King's College in London. He said,
Speaker 1: saliva's rolls cover all the functions of the mouth you
Speaker 1: can think of, including taste, chew, swallows, smell, but aerosol generation,
Speaker 1: a maintenance of mucosal tissue, lubrication of fats, a maintenance
Speaker 1: of oral microbiome, speech, et cetera. That's a mouthful, so
Speaker 1: let's break it down and discuss some of the important
Speaker 1: functions that saliva carries out in our bodies. First off, yes,
Speaker 1: saliva helps you taste food. Your taste buds get all
Speaker 1: the credit, but they'd be practically worthless if not for saliva.
Speaker 1: It's difficult for our taste buds, which lie in deep
Speaker 1: channels across our tongues, to assess dry lumpy aroma compounds
Speaker 1: without saliva. If you're skeptical, you can try this. Dab
Speaker 1: your tongue dry, then place one lump each of rock
Speaker 1: salt and rock sugar on your tongue. It'll be next
Speaker 1: to impossible to differentiate between the two lumps without allowing
Speaker 1: a wave of saliva to wash over them. A paper
Speaker 1: published in the journal Annual Review of Food Science and
Speaker 1: Technology in March of twenty twenty two, coined the term
Speaker 1: food oral processing to describe this phenomenon. Basically, we only
Speaker 1: perceive the flavor of foods if they can reach the
Speaker 1: taste buds. To get there, food molecules must pass through
Speaker 1: and be coated with a thin layer of saliva. We
Speaker 1: aren't actually tasting the food itself, but the mixture the
Speaker 1: food and the saliva. But the composition and the rate
Speaker 1: of flow of saliva is different for every person, so
Speaker 1: scientists don't know the exact science of how it affects food. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: researchers have found that people with different salivary flow rates
Speaker 1: or different levels of mucus in their saliva may have
Speaker 1: different flavor experiences of the same foods. For example, in
Speaker 1: a study published in the journal Food Research International in
Speaker 1: December of twenty nineteen, scientists measured sliva levels and participants
Speaker 1: who agreed to evaluate the taste of wine to which
Speaker 1: fruity flavored compounds had been added. Those who produced more
Speaker 1: saliva tended to score the flavors as more intense. The
Speaker 1: researchers surmised that these participants swallowed more often, which forced
Speaker 1: more aromas into their nasal passages, resulting in a more
Speaker 1: intense tasting experience, which brings us to saliva and the nose.
Speaker 1: The saliva can also affect the aroma of the food
Speaker 1: you eat, which is responsible for the vast majority of
Speaker 1: your perception of flavor as you chew. As some flavor
Speaker 1: molecules dissolve in the saliva, those that don't can waft
Speaker 1: into the nasal cavity and be sensed by the perceptors there.
Speaker 1: Saliva also helps prevent you from choking on your food
Speaker 1: as we choose. Sliva joins in and turns dry, crumbly
Speaker 1: food bits into soft, cohesive lumps that are better able
Speaker 1: to slide down our esophagus and continue their way through
Speaker 1: our digestive tract. It also helps protect our esophagus from
Speaker 1: getting damaged by any rough edged food particles, and saliva
Speaker 1: helps you digest your food too. Remember that smaller cluster
Speaker 1: of salivary glands in the upper digestive tract and esophagus.
Speaker 1: They produce a type of saliva containing digestive enzymes. One
Speaker 1: breaks down starch into sugars so your body can absorb
Speaker 1: it more easily. Another helps break down fats These enzymes
Speaker 1: prepare the food you've swallowed for the stomach. Your saliva
Speaker 1: is also saturated with calcium and phosphate ions that help
Speaker 1: protect the enamel surface of your teeth. Without this concentration
Speaker 1: in your saliva, the enamel on your teeth would start
Speaker 1: to erode. This helps explain nursing bottle syndrome, a condition
Speaker 1: in young children who suck on filled bottles or sippy
Speaker 1: cups for prolonged periods of time. The milk or juice
Speaker 1: can sit on the teeth and especially the top teeth,
Speaker 1: which are less protected by saliva, long enough for bacteria
Speaker 1: to start causing cavities. Saliva also protects from tooth decay
Speaker 1: by helping dilute dietary carbohydrates and neutralizing the acids from plaque. Finally,
Speaker 1: remember how we said your saliva changes due to different influences.
Speaker 1: Your spit is affected by the body's fight or flight response.
Speaker 1: When you experience high stress or anxiety, your body he
Speaker 1: seeks to conserve energy so that you can fight or flee.
Speaker 1: One of the ways the body does this is by
Speaker 1: shutting down your digestive system. That's why when you're feeling stressed, scared,
Speaker 1: or anxious like when you're about to speak publicly. You
Speaker 1: may notice your mouth feels especially parched, and that's why
Speaker 1: speakers often keep water nearby During speeches, presentations, and other performances.
Speaker 1: It's difficult to speak with a dry mouth. Water can help,
Speaker 1: but having an adequate amount of saliva in the mouth
Speaker 1: lubricates the oral tissues, making it easier to talk smoothly.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article what is the
Speaker 1: liva and how does it change the Taste of food?
Speaker 1: On how stuffworks dot com written by Jennifer Walker. Journey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how
Speaker 1: Stuffworks dot Com, and it is produced by Tyler Lang.
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