Saliva is important because it: Keeps your mouth moist and comfortable. Helps you chew, taste, and swallow. Fights germs in your mouth and prevents bad breath.

Saliva also contains an enzyme called lingual lipase, which breaks down fats. A condition known as dry mouth (xerostomia) occurs when you don’t have enough saliva in your mouth. This can make it difficult for you to chew and swallow food.

Saliva, the watery liquid produced by glands located under the tongue, is an essential component of the digestive process. Saliva is 98% water, so it moistens the mouth and helps compact food into softened particles for easier swallowing.

How Saliva Helps. Saliva helps prevent cavities from forming, and aids in protecting against gum disease. It naturally cleans teeth by washing away bits of food debris and preventing a prolonged acid attack on tooth enamel. Saliva also contains antimicrobial agents that help combat bad bacteria that fuels cavities.

Drooling is usually caused by excess saliva in the mouth. Medical conditions such as acid reflux and pregnancy can increase saliva production. Allergies, tumors, and above-the-neck infections such as strep throat, tonsil infection, and sinusitis can all impair swallowing.

Saliva is loaded with germy bacteria, and tap water can contain harmful amoebas—bacteria-like organisms that can cause Acanthamoeba keratitis, an infection that can leave you permanently blind.

Oral mucosa heals faster than skin, suggesting that saliva may have properties that aid wound healing. Saliva contains cell-derived tissue factor, and many compounds that are antibacterial or promote healing.

We can’t correct our vision without professional help, and there’s no quick-and-easy fix for eyesight problems. But with tools such as good nutrition and diet, you can still help your eyesight naturally and on your own. As always, please discuss with your eye doctor.

Eating how many carrots a day is too much? One carrot, on average, has about four mg of beta-carotene in it. Eating about 10 carrots every day for a couple of weeks may cause carotenemia. This occurs due to the deposition of beta-carotene in the skin.

Cooked carrots, spinach, mushrooms, asparagus, cabbage, peppers and many other vegetables also supply more antioxidants, such as carotenoids and ferulic acid, to the body than they do when raw, Liu says. At least, that is, if they’re boiled or steamed.