You need to drink enough water daily to help your saliva glands do their work properly. — dpa
There’s the dryness. Slight stickiness. Oh yes, and the bad breath too.
Colloquially known as morning mouth, it’s all too familiar to many of us.
When we sleep at night, the salivary glands in our mouth rest too.
If you sleep with your mouth open, or breathe through your mouth due to nasal congestion, your mouth gets even drier.
Drinking a glass of water after getting up should make your mouth nice and moist again.
“But if your mouth often – or even always – feels dry, consult your dentist,” advises Dr Stefan Zimmer, chair of restorative and preventative dentistry in the Faculty of Health at Witten/Herdecke University in Germany.
The importance of saliva
You may not realise just how important saliva is for mouth health unless you have too little of it.
The Cologne-based proDente Initiative, whose aim is to make people aware of the key role of dental/oral health in overall health, points to possible effects of xerostomia, the medical term for dry mouth:
Saliva moistens food, making it easier to chew, turning it into a small, soft ball (bolus) that glides down your throat and oesophagus into your stomach when you swallow.
Your taste buds need to be sufficiently moistened by saliva for you to taste dry foods.
You may have a burning sensation on your tongue.
Your lips may be dry as well, and the corners of your mouth can become cracked.
Bad breath can develop, as a lack of saliva allows food particles to accumulate in your mouth and bacteria to thrive, producing foul-smelling waste products.
Your teeth are more subject to cavities and erosion.
Saliva washes away food particles and sugars, neutralises bacteria and dilutes acids that attack tooth enamel.
Vulnerable groups
There are certain groups of people who are at particular risk of dry mouth:
The elderly are the primary risk group, proDente says, because they tend not to drink sufficient fluids and their salivary glands are less active than those of younger people.
Many takers of medicines – including psychotropic drugs, anti-hypertensive agents and pain relievers – can have, depending on the active ingredient, dry mouth as a side effect.
Dry mouth, accompanied by extreme thirst and frequent urination, can also indicate diabetes and should be medically checked.
People who engage in intense exercise or sport can also experience low saliva levels, because the salivary glands are less active then.
Mouth-breathing, which occurs during such activities, plays its part too.
Helpful home remedies
Your salivary glands can only produce enough saliva when you’re well-hydrated.
So drink at least 1.5 litres of fluids a day and eat water-rich foods, such as melons, cucumbers and soup.
It’s also advisable to include foods requiring a lot of chewing in your diet.
Two examples are raw carrots and wholemeal bread.
Chewing stimulates saliva production.
This is also why it’s good to chew sugar-free gum to help manage dry mouth.
ProDente recommends sucking on sugar-free lozenges with anise, fennel or sage, or on small ice cubes.
Another way to relieve dryness in your mouth, and the irritated oral mucosa that can result, is a homemade mouthwash with camomile and linseed.
How to prepare a mouthwash for dry mouth: For a daily portion, you need one tablespoon of linseed, one tablespoon of dried camomile and 500ml of water, says a guide by the Berlin-based Centre for Quality in Care (ZQP) – a non-profit foundation dedicated to improving long-term care of older care recipients – and the University Outpatient Clinic for Complementary Medicine of Berlin’s Charité hospital.
Boil the linseed for five minutes in 250ml of water, then strain.
Pour 250ml of water over the camomile, then let it steep for 10 minutes before straining it.
Mix the linseed decoction and camomile tea.
Now you have your mouthwash.
You can use it four times a day, the ZQP says.
And you should store it in a refrigerator. – By Ricarda Dieckmann/dpa
