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The Tongue: Magic Mirror of Health
Have you looked at your tongue lately? Probably not, if you are like most people. The stories it can tell are many and varied. They are revealing and read like a book.
The importance of the tongue to swallowing and speech are quite obvious and accepted as part of being human. Often lost is the realization that the tongue is one of the body’s most needed, special sense organs. Its color, size, shape, and functions are critically involved in many day to day things we do. In addition, illness, medications, and drugs can alter these inborn requirements.
The normal tongue is light pink in color and is covered with tiny papillae that, when seen with a microscope, appear as miniature mushrooms. Buried among the papillae are taste buds that enable us to distinguish salt, sweet, sour, and bitter. Some authorities add alkaline and metallic taste abilities. It is not at all unusual for people to say that they have a sweet tooth. What they really have is a sweet tongue.
The taste buds do not involve all of its surface but mainly the tip, the edges, and rear-most third of the tongue. We are not able to distinguish different tastes equally well over its total surface area. The tip is best noted for sensing sweet and salt, while the sour taste is picked up by the sides and back of the tongue.
To be tasted, a substance must be in solution. If you dry off your tongue with a towel and place a lump of sugar upon it, there would be no sensation of sweet until some of the sugar is dissolved by the saliva that has seeped in between the tongue and the sugar cube.
The sense of taste plays an important role in stimulating the flow of our gastric digestive juices. Messages of our sensations of taste are sent to the brain by the seventh and ninth cranial nerves. If these nerves are severed surgically or by accident, appetite and instinctive food selection ability is lost. The tongue’s sense of touch and temperature is governed by the fifth cranial nerve.
A change in color is easily identified but is usually not apparent to most of us. Dozens of different systemic diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and mechanical injuries from teeth and other factors can be responsible. After brushing your teeth, stick out your tongue and look at it. If it is a bright fiery red color, a vitamin B2 (riboflavin) or a B3 (niacin) deficiency may be present. Should it appear purplish or magenta colored, a lack of B2 often exists. Bluish, smooth tongues are crying for B6 and/or iron, while a pale, smooth one is a sign of B12 and/or folic acid deficiency.
You can see from this list that, should the color of your tongue stray from its normal light pink color, you no doubt are suffering from a lack of B vitamins. Taking some brewer’s yeast or some other B complex may restore it to normal. If not, professional help is called for to learn which of the B fractions are in short supply. When you realize that two-thirds of the food value of grains has been lost in the processing procedures used when they are milled into flour products, white bread, and most boxed cereals, the reasons for these tongue changes become more apparent. Just one of the group of nutrients milled away are the B vitamins. Their loss is not only an important health factor to the tongue, but to all the other glands and organs as well.
Dentists have been advising the public for many years that the oral cavity is a great discloser of what is going on throughout the body. Emanuel Cheraskin, MD, DDS, professor at Alabama University, in a report on the examination findings of 914 patients who had abnormal stomach and intestinal symptoms, found 660 of them also had sore tongues.
Glossitis is a general term signifying inflammation of the tongue. It can occur from local infections in the mouth, from jagged teeth, ill-fitting dentures, oral habits, irritants such as tobacco, hot foods, spices, alcohol, toothpastes, mouth washes, breath fresheners, dyes, candy, and occasionally, allergies to plastic and metals in the mouth. Glossitis can also result from systemic diseases such as lichen planus, anemia, diabetes, sprue, and malignancies. When malnutrition is a contributing cause, diet correction plus iron, B2, B3, and multiple vitamin and mineral supplementation is called for. Stomach and intestinal digestive enzymes may also be deficient, preventing even a good diet from being utilized.
Geographic and pouch-like appearing tongues affect 1 to 3 percent of the population. This condition is characterized by rough, irregular grooves, ridges, and fissures over the tongue’s surface. The abnormality is rather bizarre and looks as though it should be painful. It rarely is. Improvement takes place with the same attention to better nutrition and vitamin B complex and a multivitamin/mineral regime. Checking for diabetes should also be done.
Occasionally, a person will develop an enlarged tongue, called macroglossia. It can grow enough to cause excess pressure on the teeth, forcing them to protrude or become crooked. Some of these cases have been found in people suffering the disease amyloidosis and also in those living on diets high in sweets and refined carbohydrates. Hypothyroidism, that is, low thyroid activity, is another factor. Thyroid hormone prescriptions, plus diet changes, have resulted in regression of the tongue size and have also stopped cracked fingernails and hair loss when present. Enlarged, beefy tongues also have reduced in size after pantothenic acid, another one of the B vitamins, is given.
Most individuals know that their tongue may develop a white coating over its surface during illness. The condition almost always occurs after antibiotic therapy. The white growth is a fungus infection. Normally, the friendly bacteria which inhabit our mouths keep the fungi that also are present in check. The bacteria and the fungi are two microscopic armies facing one another. Usually, their battles are a standoff. But when antibiotics, steroids, or strong mouth washes are used, the friendly bacteria are killed off, allowing the fungus army to take over. In smokers, the white coating of the tongue becomes brown and black and can become quite thick. This profuse overgrowth is sometimes called black, hairy tongue. A bad breath is not uncommon to these conditions.
There are numbers of different kinds of fungi, as there are different bacteria. The most common one is called Candida Albicans. Their coating on the tongue can be removed with the tooth brush. Most people never think to brush their tongues but it enjoys being cleaned just as do your teeth, gums, face, and body. For those who tend to gag readily, brushing the tongue is a great way to learn how to overcome this problem. To start with, it is best to just brush the forward one-third of the tongue. As soon as the person feels he might gag, the brush is withdrawn, a few deep breaths are taken, and the action repeated. With day after day brushing, one eventually learns to control the gag reflex and to tolerate brushing all of the tongue. Just as the sword swallower was able to overcome gagging, so can the average person. Incidentally, just use clear water to do the tongue brushing and do so after you have brushed the teeth. Tooth paste on it isn’t detrimental but it could complicate the gagging problem.
The difficulty with Candida Albicans infections is that they are seldom confined to just the tongue. Prolonged and frequent use of antibiotics, steroids and the pill have resulted in fungus infections throughout the intestinal tract, frequently in the vagina and, at times, throughout the body. Severe illnesses that mimic many diseases can result. Treatment requires antifungal medications and strict avoidance of sweets, carbohydrates and fruits, as fungi multiply ferociously in the presence of sugar and grain foods.
Oral herpes infections, commonly called cold or canker sores, not only attack the lips and gums, but also involve the tongue. Often the first ulcer appears on the tip of the tongue. They are very painful and usually disrupt eating for one to two weeks, and even longer. These usually occur after eating foods high in the amino acid arginine, found to be generously present in peanuts, peanut butter, cashews, pecans, almonds, seeds, peas, chocolate, and toasted cereals. The ulcers will heal quickly if the diet is changed to one high in another amino acid called lysine, found in meat, fish, and yogurt. It is also helpful to take lysine capsules or tablets. They usually contain 500 mg. Most authorities recommend one or two, three times a day for five days. Another frequent cause is fruit juice. Orange juice seems to be the most prevalent cause but that may be because so much of it is used by the public. Actually, any fruit can be responsible for the occurrence of these ulcers, and that includes tomatoes. Juices are particularly bad because, when in beverage form, one consumes the equivalent of more pieces of the fruit than one would eat. However, I have seen many who developed cold or canker sores eating but one piece of fruit. Oral herpes ulcers frequently occur to travelers returning from Hawaii as so much fruit (particularly pineapple) is consumed by island visitors. Incidentally, topical application of vitamin E cream, or opening an E capsule and applying the oil, will quickly relieve the discomfort.
Dry, burning tongues are often caused by drugs and medications. This is a frequent side effect of many prescriptions and over-the-counter medicines. Dryness and burning can also come from vitamin B and C deficiency, or a shortage of other vitamins and minerals.
Any persistent sore, red, or ulcerated area on the tongue or mouth tissues should be examined promptly by a dentist or physician as oral malignancy cure rates are much more favorable if discovered early.
While differences in appearances of the tongue occur at all ages, Dr. Paul Friedman reported in the British medical journal Lancet that his investigations disclosed that the tongues of 50% of hospital patients and an equal number of those over 60 years of age had lost their normal pink appearance and showed other irregularities. Sticking your tongue out at yourself for a good view in the bathroom mirror might produce a laugh or two, but it also could be one of the best preventive medicine treats you ever had.
George E. Meinig, DDS, FACD, is the author of New-trition: How to Achieve Optimum Health and Root Canal Cover-Up. Now retired from his active practice in Ojai, California, Dr. Meinig travels the country, delivering his message about the serious side effects of root canal therapy. His articles have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers, and he is a frequent guest on radio and television. Dr. Meinig is a member of PPNF’s Advisory Board.
Published in Health & Healing Wisdom
Summer 1995 | Volume 19, Number 2;
Reprinted in the Price-Pottenger Journal of Health and Healing
Spring 2000 | Volume 24, Number 1
Copyright © 1995 Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, Inc.®
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