The amazing and hard-working tongue! With so much focus on your teeth and gums, the tongue deserves some overdue attention. The tongue not only helps you breathe, chew and swallow food, form and speak words clearly – it’s also a window into your health.
A closer look at the tongue
The tongue has muscles in it that allow it to move side to side, up and down, and diagonally to carry out its jobs. When you look at it in a mirror, you can see its different parts.
Front of the tongue. The front of the tongue is flexible and works with your teeth to create different types of words. It also helps you move food around in your mouth while you chew, then moves food to the back teeth to grind up.
Back of the tongue. The back of the tongue helps you make sounds like “k” and hard “g” (think kangaroo and go). When you’re eating, the back of the tongue helps mix saliva, or spit, with ground up food before you swallow.
Under the tongue. You can’t swallow your tongue because under it is your frenulum (FREN-yuh-lum). That’s a fancy word for the thin layer of tissue that connects your tongue to the base of your mouth.
Top of the tongue. The top of the tongue is covered with a layer of bumps that help food stay in place or move in your mouth while you chew. The bumps, or taste cells, also contain up to 10,000 taste buds, which help you taste food and know if it is sweet, sour, bitter, or salty.
The tasting tongue
Taste cells on top of your tongue tell your brain information about what you eat through sensitive, microscopic hairs called microvilli (mye-kro-VILL-eye). They help you perceive different tastes and let your brain know whether something tastes bad or good (which makes eating more enjoyable), and alert you if something isn’t safe to consume, like sour milk or rotten meat.
Fun fact: Taste buds regenerate every 10 days! If you injure one (think burning your tongue on food that’s too hot), it will repair itself in just over a week. As you age, taste buds can die, which is why when you are younger, foods may taste stronger than they do to adults.
Fighting germs
When you have a cold or your nose is stuffed up, you can’t taste food or drinks. This is because the nose and the tongue work together. Your nose smells food before it goes into your mouth. Your tongue also works together with teeth, lips, and your mouth to make sure food doesn’t go bad before you try to eat it. All of this wonderful collaboration, just to keep you healthy!
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