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Saliva Test May Predict Risk for Cavities

© Neal Rolfe Chamberlain

When I was a kid my mother would frequently tell me that spitting was not appropriate behavior and it would not be allowed in her presence. The only exceptions to this rule was when I played baseball or when I went to the dentist.

Baseball players used to spit a lot and that was probably because of the large amounts of chewing tobacco they all used to stuff in their mouths. Fewer baseball players use chewing tobacco today and that is good. Chewing tobacco is hard on the teeth and gums and the spit it produced was that terrible looking brown stuff. Since my mother did not allow me to chew tobacco a nice wade of gum would induce enough saliva for the frequent donation to the grass in the ballpark. I don't know maybe it was a way of irrigating the ballpark on dry years.

Sorry I got distracted. We were also asked to spit a lot at the dentist. This was before those suction tubes that they frequently use now. Beside the dentist chair was a small round white porcelain sink (around 6-8 inches in diameter) with water constantly flowing out of a metal tube just inside the edge of the sink to wash down the saliva the dentist would frequently ask us to produce.

Going to the dentist, for me, was not always a pleasant experience. My folks insisted we go to the dentist two times a year for a "check up". The cleaning of the teeth was fine. A little scraping here a little poking there and before you knew it your teeth felt cleaner than ever and your mouth had that nice mint-like taste and gritty feeling. The part I didn't like was the news I got at the end of the "check up". I knew what they were checking for and frequently they found them: CAVITIES! My brother did not have many cavities and he never thought it very scary to go to the dentist. But for me always lingering in the back of my mind was the fear of the bad news the dentist's final words would bring at the end of my check up.

The most common cause of tooth loss in children is cavity formation. The most common cause of a tooth cavity is a bacterium called Streptococcus mutans. This bacterium takes the sugar it finds when someone eats a sweet treat and turns that sugar into acid. When the bacteria turn the sugar into acid they are making energy for themselves. Unfortunately, the acid eats away at the tooth surface. If allowed to progress long enough the damage can get into the nerve of

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