Digestive System

Diagram of Salivary Glands

"How Much Saliva Can You Produce Everyday?"

"One liter -This Much!"

And all this saliva is secreted by

They come in pairs on the left and right of your skull, namely:

1. Parotid glands close beneath your ears contribute 25% of thicker saliva with larger amount of digestive enzyme.

2. Sublingual glands under your tongue, produces 5% saliva, and

3. Submandibular glands under your lower jaw bone is a major contributor of 70%.

I laugh to think of the Chinese word "Kou-Shui" for saliva literally "mouth water" because it accurately portrays the main composition of saliva - 99.4% water. The remaining 0.6% is an assortment of ions, buffers, metabolites and...enzymes.

The enzyme I am seeking here is amylase. To explain, let me chew my favourite starch food, pasta al dente, leisurely and gradually comes a mild sweet sensation. That's because amylase in the saliva breaks down the pasta into simple sugar called maltose.

As I look at the bottle above to mentally estimate less than 0.6%, that's only a tiny amount of amylase to digest all the starch I eat for the whole day. Yes, enzymes are powerful little workers!

A health freak friend of mine says the first thing she doses after waking up every morning , mind you, is not brush teeth but to swallow her own saliva. Sounds like "free enzyme drink" to prevent constipation, eh? * Grins of the Alice in Wonderland Cat*

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