All known innovations ever created by man have been geared and centered towards making man's existence on earth more comfortable and in the long run, his survival. The inborn desire of man to create and innovate since the start of time has always been about his survival, if not on earth, then on some other planet.
To this effect, man's desire to survive has always been a driving force, but while we look outside to make our existence more comfortable, how much do we know about what's happening within, that could determine to the greatest of extent, if we survive the next coming years or not.
Saliva, the first liquid substance that welcomes anything we try to get into our system through the Gastrointestinal tract. It has somewhat been ignored by many and termed loosely unimportant in the scale of Important body fluids in man. But when one speaks about comfort and survival, the word Saliva has always been at the forefront of things that should be protected.
The basic component of human existence is speech or communication, and so far, the mouth has been a key Peirce in communication. The saliva contains mucus that keeps the mouth well lubricated and hence, facilitates speech. It's been researched that in cases of severe reduction of saliva secretion in some patients, speech could be extremely difficult or impossible without artificial aid, are you still doubting how important Saliva is.
It's worthy to note that one would find it difficult to eat anything solid without the help of saliva. The saliva serves as a liquid medium to moisten food particles and also provides a medium for some chemical Reactions such as digestion of carbohydrates in the mouth by an enzyme amylase, which is also contained in the Saliva.
Aside from this basic function of speech and food intake, saliva also acts as an antimicrobial agent as it contains the enzyme lysozyme that kills certain bacteria and keeps the mouth from smelling or even breeding such bacteria. In other words, the Saliva acts as a deterrent to the growth of microorganisms.
Could they be all? Of course not, the saliva also served certain subtle functions such as inducing thirst, the act of tasting food as it provides optimum reaction environment for the taste buds, hence without the saliva, or may not be able to taste good.
In MEDICINE, saliva has become an incredible body fluid specimen that could be used to test and diagnose many prevalent diseases and infections. IIn fact saliva is leading the way for noninvasive testing methods in diagnostic MEDICINE as it proves to be a very easy sample to collect and process. The saliva is believed to contain most of the elements of the blood plasma, immunological antigens and antibodies, blood grouping antigens, and so on.
Still in doubt of the Importance of saliva? Well, I hope this changes your mind.
