Your mouth is a multi–purpose part of your body. You use it to speak, eat and smile. Maintaining a healthy mouth is the key to keeping your body happy.  Keep speaking, eating and smiling with confidence. Understand what each part of your mouth does and practice good oral hygiene habits. First let’s understand the main components of your mouth .The mouth comprises of your teeth , gums, tongue and salivary glands. Now let’s see how the mouth performs the various functions that we’ve just mentioned above.

Gums - firm, pink gums (Gingiva) surround a healthy tooth.

Salivary Glands – it aids digestion and helps to prevent decay. Three major sets of salivary glands as well as numerous smaller glands exist throughout your mouth. These glands produce and secrete saliva , which serves several purposes. It aids in swallowing and contains enzymes that help with digestion. Saliva also protects your mouth form decay and disease in several different ways , it flushes food away form your mouth ,helps neutralize acids that can eat away the teeth , directly kills or inhibits disease causing organisms, replenishes minerals in your tooth enamel and helps to heal wounds.

Understanding Teeth

First let’s understand the different parts of a tooth. Lets’ see how the teeth help in digesting your food. Each tooth consists of a visible portion called the crown and a hidden portion below the gum line, called the root. The surface of a healthy crown is covered with enamel the hardest substance in the body. The outer surface of the root is covered by cementum. A connective tissue binds the root cementum to the bone that forms the socket of the tooth. Beneath the enamel and cementum lies the body of the inner tooth, Dentin, dentin is softer than enamel and cementum, but it’s harder than done. It surrounds the hollow tooth core (called the pulp canal or root canal) , an area where nerve ending and blood vessels sensitize and nourish the root . Nerves and vessels feed in to the pulp canal through an opening at the root tip.

They’ve usually developed before your child is born and will start to come through at around 6 months. All 20 baby teeth are through by the child is 2. The first permanent molar (back teeth is a very important tooth from both the functional and developmental point of view. It usually erupts at 6 years behind the baby teeth and before the baby teeth starts falling out. It bears the maximum load of masticating and chewing forces. This tooth being most posterior is often neglected by parents and children alike. Due to the presence of deep often incompletely coalesced fissures, food particles get trapped in it quite frequently and its decay is rapid.   

Destruction of the tooth, if severe, leads to subsequent extraction. the permanent adult teeth will replace the baby teeth . it is usually the lower front teeth that are lost first followed by the upper front teeth shortly . the first to erupt are the two lower central incisors at 6-12 month . this is followed by the lateral incisors at 9-12 month , than the canines at 16-23 months. The first molars are at 13-19 months followed by the second molars 22-23, month. all permanent teeth are in place by the age of 13, except the wisdom  teeth . These may erupt any time between 18 and 25 years of age.

Taking care of your mouth, teeth and gums isn’t just a matter of good grooming. it can prevent infections, and maybe even diseases, throughout your body. good oral and dental hygiene can help prevent bad breath tooth decay and gum disease, and can help you keep your teeth as you get older. An unhealthy mouth, especially if you have gum disease, may increase your risk of serious health problems such as heart attack stroke and poorly controlled diseases, the need for goods oral hygiene keeps getting stronger as you understand the importance of oral health and its connection to your overall health. What’s in your mouth reveals much about your health, you may wonder what the health of your mouth has to do with your overall health. Lots, a look inside or a swab of saliva can tell your doctor volumes about what’s going on inside your body.

Your mouth is indeed a window to what’s going on in the rest of your body , often helping to detect early signs and symptom of a disease like AIDS or diabetes that affects your entire body,  A study has revealed that more than 90 percent of all systemic diseases produce oral signs and symptoms .

Saliva testing can also measure illegal drugs, environmental toxins, hormones and antibodies indicating hepatitis or HIV infection among other things. it is said that in the future, saliva testing may replace blood testing as a means of diagnosing and monitoring diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, cirrhosis of liver and many infectious diseases. Saliva is also one of your body’s main defenses against disease causing organisms, such as bacterial and viruses. It contains antibodies that attach the common cold and HIV causing viruses. Some research suggests that people with gum infections are also at increased risk of heart attack and stroke. The more severe the infection, the greater the risk appears to be. And gum disease and tooth loss may contribute to plaques in the carotid artery. In one study, 46 percent of participants who had lost up to nine teeth had carotid artery plaque; among those who had lost 10 or more teeth, 60 percent of them had such plaque.   

Mouth Care

The objectives of mouth care should be to keep the mouth and lips moist because dry, cracked lips are an entry site for potential infections, and to remove debris, because keeping the mouth clean will help prevent debris becoming attached to the membranes and causing the tissue to break down. It will also help prevent the build-up of plaque, which is another area where infection could start. If you did not already have enough reasons to take good care of your mouth, teeth and gums, the relationship between your oral health and your overall health provides even more.

Resolve to practice good oral hygiene every day. You are making an investment in your over all health, not just now, but for the future too. Good oral hygiene doesn’t have to be difficult. Get in the habit of taking a few simple steps each day and seeing your dentist regularly. You will be ensuring yourself brighter smile and better overall health too. However in this day and age the most useful and most common use of teeth is identification. Everyone knows that the first thing used in identification is fingerprints. But what if there are no matching fingerprints or the body was so badly damaged that fingerprints couldn’t be taken. However, while the body is frail and cannot withstand many mediums, teeth are very strong and can last long after the body does. It is for this reasons that teeth are used for identification. Teeth like fingerprints are very unique in that no two are exactly alike. One can simply look at the teeth indentations and compare them with dental records or teeth x-ray can be compared.

So next time, you brush your teeth know that you are saving more than just your smile. You are saving one of the single most important physical things about yourself. Your teeth, if kept well will last much longer than you will. They will also tell more about you than just about any other single physical thing and all you have to do is to brush two times a day and floss regularly.

 Importance of Baby Teeth 

Poor Oral Health Leads to Poor Nutrition 

It would be no understatements to say that at least a quarter of the populace over the age of 65 have lost all their permanent teeth. The loss of teeth is linked to variety of serious health outcomes. It has been proved that the back teeth that come together during chewing are of particular importance. These teeth are responsible for the grinding of food and if missing, can lead to avoiding foods that are difficult to chew. A recent study showed that adults over 50 who have one to four remaining pairs of back teeth have poorer diet quality and nutritional status than those with at least five pairs. Older adults with fewer pairs of teeth had less variety in their diet. They could not eat as many fruits and vegetables as the others and had lower intake of vitamins A & C, carotene, folic acid and fiber. So they were left with options such as cooked fruits and vegetables, juices, apple sauce and vegetable based soups. It is possible to add more fibre to diet by eating cooked whole grain cereals, soft whole grain breads and mashed potatoes with the skins. For these people there is more stress on the importance of maintaining balance diet so that their health is not affected further.