The Body Secretion No One Is Talking About: Saliva

This article was updated on January 23, 2024

The dental products lining your bathroom sink right now could be destroying your mouth. I’m talking about fluoride toothpaste, harsh mouthwash, and peroxide whitening gel.

The marketing campaigns behind these products are clever, but don’t let yourself be fooled. Conventional dental products strip your oral microbiome of its natural protections and leave your teeth and gums vulnerable to damage and decay. 

But there’s another part of this equation that nobody is talking about: saliva. 

Saliva isn’t just… spit. It plays four vital roles that define your oral health and directly influence your gut health. 

Yet we’re making such a mess of our mouths by using “normal” and “mainstream” products that our saliva can’t do its job. Every time you brush with fluoride toothpaste or swish with an alcohol-based mouthwash, your saliva becomes compromised. This is exactly why we’re plagued by digestive issues, cavities, sensitive teeth, and declining overall health. 

Fortunately, the answer is unbelievably simple. You can change all of this by swapping your traditional oral care products for natural, mineral-based alternatives. 

Why Is Saliva So Important?

We don’t talk about it nearly enough, but saliva is the cornerstone of dental health. You can’t have healthy gums, clean teeth, or a white smile without saliva. Period. 

The components of saliva, which include 99% water and 1% electrolytes and proteins, uphold four critical responsibilities in the mouth that can’t be overlooked. 

Neutralize Acids

This is supposed to be a simple job. Your saliva, which ideally holds a pH between 6.2 and 7.6, should flow through your mouth after you eat to neutralize acids lingering from your lunch or coffee. This helps restore an alkaline environment where good bacteria and minerals thrive to support healthy teeth and gums. 

However, the components of saliva can only neutralize acids efficiently when it holds a neutral pH. This is a problem since most of our oral health habits trigger acidic saliva with a pH lower than 5.5. Without healthy saliva to dilute harmful acids, the teeth and gums become vulnerable to erosion and decay. 

Remineralizes Teeth

Your teeth are made of four different types of tissue: enamel on the surface, dentin underneath, and pulp and cementum at the core. These tissues rely on minerals like calcium and phosphate to retain strength and durability. 

Anytime sugars and acids have the chance to linger in your mouth, they quickly leech calcium, phosphate, and other healthy minerals out of your teeth in a process called demineralization This is a primary cause of cavities, decay, and enamel erosion. 

Healthy saliva contains calcium and phosphate ions that repair enamel damage and restore the strength of your teeth. As soon as healthy saliva covers your teeth, it replaces lost minerals and reverses demineralization. 

However, most of us face a huge problem when it comes to remineralization. Saliva can only remineralize teeth if it’s healthy, rich in minerals, and supported by an alkaline oral environment. Due to the harm caused to your oral microbiome every time you brush with toxi-paste, your saliva can’t perform remineralization the way it should. 

Think about it this way: traditional oral care products don’t contain a single mineral. Not a single bit of calcium, phosphate, or anything else remotely good for your mouth. The only ingredients you’ll find on the label are toxins and chemicals. As a result, regular brushing doesn’t offer any remineralization support to your saliva, teeth, or gums — it actually makes your mouth even less healthy! 

This might explain why I’ve listened to so many dental hygienists adamantly insist it’s impossible to rebuild enamel. Sure, if you only use “normal” toothpaste products filled with harsh chemicals and toxins, then those hygienists are right — you can’t rebuild enamel that way. 

But one tiny adjustment to brushing routine — swapping traditional toothpaste for a mineral-rich alternative — can enhance your entire oral environment and restore saliva’s remineralization abilities. It’s true, even if your dentist doesn’t recognize it. 

Carries Microbiome From Mouth to Gut

Your mouth is the gatekeeper for the rest of your body. It’s also the starting point of your digestive system. All of the bacteria, acids, and sugars that sit in your mouth eventually make their way into your gut through your saliva. This means that the condition of your mouth directly influences your overall health. 

Every time you brush with normal toothpaste, you don’t just kill bad bacteria. You kill the good, productive bacteria responsible for cultivating a healthy and nourished mouth.

This gives dangerous bacteria the opportunity to take over your oral environment and encourage the development of disease-causing conditions. You swallow these harmful bacteria in your saliva and carry them into your gut, where they continue to wreak havoc.

Systemic diseases like colorectal cancer, cardiovascular disease, and rheumatoid arthritis have all been linked to oral bacteria and infection… just to name a few!

Breaks Down Food With Enzymes

Of course, the components of saliva also facilitate the eating process by making it possible to chew, swallow, and digest the food we eat. The saliva enzyme amylase breaks down starches to help digestion begin before food even reaches the stomach. 

Connecting Your Saliva, Oral Microbiome, and Gut Health

Through its four essential functions, healthy saliva plays (or, at least, is supposed to play!) a pivotal role in maintaining equilibrium and homeostasis in the mouth.

Unfortunately, standard fluoride dental products destroy your saliva by exterminating the good, productive bacteria meant to stop pathogens, fight inflammation, reduce decay, and support a strong immune system.

Without the interaction of healthy bacteria and alkaline saliva, your oral immune system collapses and your mouth becomes vulnerable to cavities, bleeding gums, bad breath, biofilm on the tongue, chronic inflammation, and other signs of gum disease.

As the earliest point of your digestive system, your oral health also sets the tone for your digestive system. The research is clear: oral bacteria directly affects gut health, for better or worse. 

Brushing twice a day with a fluoride toothpaste that compromises your oral microbiome can automatically threaten your gut and immune system. 

How Can Healthier Saliva Restore Gut Health?

It doesn't take long for harsh toothpaste and toxic ingredients to destroy all signs of healthy bacteria and productive saliva in your mouth. This is discouraging, but there’s good news. The close relationship between your oral and gut microbiome offers a valuable opportunity to use saliva as a tool to restore gut health. 

When you take action to improve the environment inside your mouth, you support alkaline saliva capable of preventing cavities and decay. You also make it possible to balance bacteria and cultivate healthy microorganisms.

This healthier oral microbiota will quickly replicate itself in your gut and reduce symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn’s disease, chronic inflammation, and other related conditions. 

3 Ways to Get Healthier Saliva

You can’t make your saliva healthier just by wishing and hoping. You need to take purposeful action to create an oral microbiome that supports alkaline saliva instead of acidic saliva. 

Ditch Chemicals

SLS, triclosan, added sugars, dyes, and other toxins and artificial ingredients are the prime culprits silently destroying the conditions inside your mouth. The most powerful decision you can make is to find a natural toothpaste alternative that doesn’t expose your mouth to these chemicals. 

Consider the fact that the antimicrobial chemical triclosan — found in everything from hand soap to toothpaste — has been linked to inflammation and cancer in the gut.

Triclosan doesn’t discriminate between good and bad germs; it kills everything in its path. Every time you brush with a toothpaste made with triclosan, you wipe out any hints of a balanced oral microbiome. 

Stand up for your health by refusing to buy these common oral care products. Primal Life Organics offers a line of toothpaste alternatives formulated to enrich and protect your mouth, not compromise its delicate balance.  

Eat More Fresh, Whole Foods

It’s no secret that fresh whole foods are better for your body than artificial and processed foods. But you may not realize that your eating habits influence more than your waistline. By choosing fresh foods and improving your diet, you’ll increase your intake of vitamins and minerals known to support oral health. 

Foods rich in calcium and phosphate, for example, promote healthier saliva, teeth, and gums. Milk, yogurt, cheese, salmon, lean meat, nuts, and beans are all delicious and nutritious options to supplement your oral care routine. 

Avoid Peroxide Teeth Whitening

Peroxide whitening gels are never good news for your teeth, but they’re especially bad news for your saliva. Carbamide peroxide, the main ingredient in most standard whitening products, breaks down into hydrogen peroxide and penetrates tooth enamel to break down stain molecules. This causes significant damage to enamel and leaches minerals from your teeth. 

Unless you want irritated gums, thin and brittle teeth, and an out-of-whack oral biome, steer clear of peroxide whitening products. Your saliva will thank you!

The Best Oral Care Products For Your Saliva

Even if you eat a perfect, 100% organic diet, floss with a passion, and drink plenty of water, it only takes two minutes of brushing with a standard toothpaste to destroy the protective properties of your saliva and oral microbiome. 

Yet somehow, mainstream dentists don’t seem to understand this. They point to fluoride toothpaste as the solution, not the root cause! But let me ask you this. If fluoride toothpaste worked the way we’re brainwashed to believe, we wouldn’t be plagued by dental problems like cavities, sensitivity, gum disease, and tooth loss, now would we? 

It’s time to reframe the conversation about oral health and identify the real solution. The following four products improve and protect your oral health in a way that conventional products cannot. Nourish your mouth with these alkalizing and mineral-rich products to actively and purposefully restore not just your oral microbiome, but your overall health. 

Tooth Powder

Natural, clay-based tooth powder doesn’t attempt to mimic or reproduce a “healthier” version of fluoride toothpaste. Instead, it offers a revolutionary alternative that’s immeasurably better. 

Dirty Mouth Tooth Powder swaps fluoride, triclosan, SLS, and other nasty toxins for bentonite clay, aluminum-free baking soda, white kaolin clay, French green clay, and organic essential oils. 

The secret to this recipe can be found in the three nontoxic, mineral-rich earthen clays. They don’t just lazily clean food debris from your teeth and call it a night. Bentonite clay latches onto dangerous toxins and draws them out of your mouth. It also accelerates the vital remineralization process by nourishing teeth with silica, calcium, zinc, potassium, and magnesium. 

French green clay and white kaolin clay are also rich in calcium, silica, zinc, and magnesium. They efficiently remove toxins and impurities while replacing lost minerals in tooth enamel. When these three clays work together, they transform oral health with the following improvements: 

• Strengthen teeth and enamel
• Alkalize saliva
• Reduce harmful bacteria while protecting healthy bacteria
• Minimize sensitivity by remineralizing teeth
• Protect against gum disease by fighting plaque and inflammation

You only need to brush once with Dirty Mouth Tooth Powder to notice the dramatic difference it creates.

Colloidal Silver Toothpaste

Dirty Mouth Toothpaste builds upon the recipe for Dirty Mouth Tooth Powder by reinventing toothpaste into what it’s supposed to be. A combination of colloidal silver, earthen clays, and essential oils go the extra mile to enhance saliva health and activity. 

Colloidal silver functions uniquely in oral tissues as an antimicrobial, antibacterial, and anti-inflammatory agent. It creates an environment rich in oxygen, silver, and alkalinity where dangerous bacteria simply can’t thrive. Colloidal silver also stimulates the parotid glands, which sit on either side of your face to secrete saliva. 

All of this means that when you use Dirty Mouth Toothpaste on a regular basis, you’ll improve the flow of healthy saliva, reduce harmful bacteria, and revitalize the health of your mouth virtually overnight. 

Gum Serum

Don’t you find it strange that most dental products focus on the teeth but rarely make an effort to protect your gums? This is exactly why I formulated Dirty Mouth Gum Drops with 11 potent essential oils. When you nurture your gum tissue, you automatically support healthier saliva, cleaner teeth, and a whiter smile. 

Tea tree, peppermint, spearmint, lemon, eucalyptus, clove bud, lavender, myrrh, cinnamon, chamomile, and cypress oils quickly boost blood flow, reduce nasty bacteria, and create harmony within your oral microbiome.

Most importantly, this powerful serum cleanses oils, toxins, and impurities from your gum tissue. This clears the way for saliva to perform its most important responsibilities without the burden of acids, sugars, and bacteria. 

LED Whitening Kit

If you’re serious about preventing acidic saliva before it begins, look beyond your toothpaste and mouthwash products. Your whitening habits could also be compromising your saliva health. 

Fortunately, there’s never been a better time to swap peroxide whitening strips for a natural alternative. The Primal Life Organics LED teeth whitening system effectively removes stains from coffee, tea, red wine, berries, and other sources of discoloration without using a single drop of harsh peroxide. 

The whitening gel is formulated to simultaneously whiten teeth and improve oral health. It’s loaded with mineral-rich clays, activated charcoal, and essential oils. With four to five treatments a week, you can steadily restore minerals and enhance healthy saliva for stronger, sturdier, less sensitive teeth. 

Meanwhile, the red and blue LED lights serve their own therapeutic purposes by killing bad bacteria and stimulating tissue turnover and blood flow. No standard hydrogen peroxide whitening strips can come close to delivering so many oral benefits at one time. 

Turn Acidic Saliva Into Your Mouth’s Most Powerful Weapon

This might be the first time you've ever considered the role that the components of saliva play in your health. Maybe a few pieces of the puzzle are finally coming together as you realize that your ongoing tooth sensitivity and digestive issues aren't mysterious or out of your control; they're directly related to your brushing habits!

Once you identify the root causes of your acidic saliva and weak oral microbiome, you can start to make changes and take control of your body once again. Find the nearest dumpster and throw all of your toxi-paste inside. Stock up on mineral-rich alternatives like PLO’s Dirty Mouth Tooth Powder and colloidal silver toothpaste instead.

It won’t take long to experience lasting proof that your oral health influences the rest of your body. That feeling of revitalization won’t stop at your teeth. It will spread through your gut as healthy bacteria finally has the opportunity to do its job. 

All of this from simply switching your toothpaste? Yes, that’s right. 

 

Resources:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK542251/
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