Does body fluid include saliva?

Saliva occupies an inconspicuous position in the human mouth, but this does not mean that we can ignore the important role saliva plays in the human body. Because of the presence of saliva, the chance of the human oral cavity suffering from oral diseases is greatly reduced. Saliva also contains a large amount of biological enzymes, which can effectively kill viruses and bacteria. Everyone's body secretes body fluids, and does body fluids include saliva?

Body fluids are divided into intracellular fluid and extracellular fluid, which are the living environment of most cell tissues in the human body. Saliva is not included. Intracellular fluid is the fluid inside the cells! Extracellular fluid includes plasma, tissue fluid, cerebrospinal fluid and lymph fluid. Semen is not considered body fluid either.

The role of saliva

1. Moisten the mouth and food to facilitate speaking and swallowing;

2. Constantly remove food particles from the taste buds so that you can continue to taste the flavor of the food;

3. Clean and protect the oral cavity;

4. Antibacterial effect;

5. Convert starch in food into maltose.

Advantages of saliva: The carbonates, phosphates and proteins it contains can provide chemical protection for teeth; the amylase it contains can aid digestion; its ingredients can fight bacteria; it can clean the mouth; cancer and AIDS can be detected by testing saliva.

Disadvantages of saliva: Saliva can also spread diseases through the human body carrying germs.

The health-preserving function of saliva has been valued and recognized since ancient times. When the ancients first created characters, they used water from the side of the tongue to represent the character "活", meaning that the water (saliva) on the side of the tongue can maintain the vitality of the human body. In order to emphasize its importance, medical scientists and health experts of all generations gave it such beautiful names as "Jinjin", "Yuye", "Qiongjiang", "Ganlu", "Yuli" and "Huachi Shenshui".

"Compendium of Materia Medica" records: "When a person is sick, the heart and kidney are not connected, and the kidney water cannot rise, so the body fluids dry up and the true qi is depleted." Li Shizhen pointed out: "Body fluids are transformed from a person's essence and qi." Ancient medical scientists believed that "body fluids" were transformed from "essence". When the essence is full, the kidney water rises and turns into body fluids. The body fluids are then swallowed to moisten the heart and prevent the heart fire from being excessive. The water and fire complement each other, and the yin and yang are balanced, which is called "drinking the elixir of life". Therefore, the ancients often swallowed saliva to achieve the effect of curing diseases, strengthening the body, and prolonging life.

A normal person secretes about 1000 to 1500 ml of saliva every day, which is a mixture of fluids secreted by the three pairs of larger salivary glands in the mouth: the parotid glands, submandibular glands, and sublingual glands. Normal saliva is colorless, odorless, and nearly neutral (pH 6.6-7.1). Its main component is water, which accounts for 98.5% to 99%. The rest is salts containing sodium, potassium, calcium, chloride, sulfur ions, as well as amylase, lysozyme, mucin, etc.[3]