Top 3 Things You Don’t Know About Spit

When you think of spit, do you think of bad manners, gross droplets on the sidewalk, or even worse, a bottle full of chewing tobacco saliva? Most people think of spit as something pretty gross and detestable. However, at our dental offices in Highland Park and Chicago Heights, we think spit is pretty neat, and we’d like to tell you why.

25,000 Quarts

An average human produces about 25,000 quarts of spit throughout their lifetime. That’s enough to fill your swimming pool this summer. Though we don’t recommend it. We’d like you to keep your spit in your mouth for a couple reasons.

Spit is incredibly helpful when it comes to the health of your mouth and teeth. Each time you eat, you produce more saliva. That’s not a coincidence as one of saliva’s main purposes it to help clear the mouth of food particles that may get stuck behind. It’s also fantastic at neutralizing acids and protecting teeth against decay. If salivary glands aren’t producing enough spit, you’ll start to experience dry mouth. With dry mouth comes a whole host of problems including oral infections and increased risk for cavities. All that spit isn’t so bad anymore, is it?

DNA Insights

Your spit can give you a fantastic window into your own DNA. A slight swab of spit from your cheek will contain cells. Inside each cell is a nucleus. Inside each nucleus there are chromosomes which are made up of DNA. There are many organizations out there that can then analyze your DNA-filled spit and provide you information on what they find that truly makes you, you. All from a little spit.

Save a Life

Every three minutes, someone in the United States is diagnosed with blood cancer. BeTheMatch.org is an organization that strives to raise the awareness of blood cancers by increasing the bone marrow donor registry. Bone marrow is one of the most common treatments of blood cancer, and it’s often hard to find a compatible match. How is this related to spit? All it takes to get on the registry is a little swab of your cheek. Be The Match then scans the registry for each patient to help find donors for patients.

At our Highland Park and Chicago Heights dental offices, we’re full of fun facts about spit, teeth, and your mouth. If you’d like to know more cool trivia, give us a call today and schedule an appointment. We’d love to have you!

Welcoming patients from Highland Park, Deerfield, Highwood, Chicago Heights, Crete, Park Forest, and surrounding areas.