The human body (and other living beings) is an open system. In order to live, we require matter and energy, which we obtain from the environment. In addition to needing energy, we also release it in the form of heat, work and matter, which occurs as biological waste (feces) or fluids (saliva and sweat).
Depending on gender, age and physical activity, the basal metabolic rate (BMR) and total energy expenditure (TEE) vary between individuals, but a human being must ingest, on average, about 2,500 kilocalories daily in order to be able to perform their metabolic functions. Correctly. To do this, we have the digestive system, a set of organs and tubes that allow us to ingest, digest and discard food products.
In order to understand the digestive functionality of the human being (and many other things), we must resort to the functional bases, “the beginning of the chain”. Following this train of thought, today we tell you everything you need to know about the different parts of the mouth
In animal anatomy, the mouth is defined as the opening through which animals ingest food and make vocal sounds With this first phrase, we can already discern that the functionality of this opening is, at least, double: swallowing and phonation.
The most correct term to designate this set of structures is “oral cavity”, and there are analogues of it in practically all animal taxa. From the proboscis of a butterfly to the fangs of a lion, the basic functionality is maintained: ingesting food and, when possible, enabling communication between individuals of the same species or different groups. In any case, if we get technical, the “mouth” or “oral cavity” is exclusive to vertebrates, since in all of them it is the first part of the digestive system.
The mouth in the human being
The mouth in humans is the body opening through which food enters It is located on the face and constitutes most of the stomatognathic apparatus, that is, the set of organs and tissues that allow us to perform the functions of eating, speaking, pronouncing, swallowing, smiling and many other things.
In any case, it is worth noting that The functionality of the mouth in our species is much greater than that presented in other taxa of living beings We tell you some of his work in the following lines.
1. Food processing
The mouth has a total of 32 teeth, specialized in tasks related to mechanical chewing of food These are responsible for breaking up, grinding and mixing the ingested food with saliva. Thanks to the movement of the jaw and the pressure of the teeth, the degradation of food occurs.
We cannot forget either that saliva is produced here. The salivary glands (the most important being the parotid, which produces 1.5 liters of this fluid per day) secrete this alkaline reaction fluid, which begins the digestion process from the moment the food enters the mouth. It is striking to know that saliva has lysozymes, substances responsible for destroying bacteria, thus protecting the oral cavity and teeth from pathogens
2. Phonation
The production of sounds in humans occurs thanks to the respiratory system, the vocal mechanism, the resonance mechanism and the articulating elements
In the mouth there are structures included in the last 2 groups, since the oral cavity acts as a resonance mechanism and, in turn, contains articulating elements, such as the mouth, teeth and lips.
3. Aesthetics and communication
Mammals have a prodigious capacity that allows us to communicate based on body language: facial muscles. The mouth and the tissues associated with it allow us to make faces, gestures and transmit emotions and eigenstates of multiple forms.
Did you know that 55% of human communication is based on body language? No matter how much we advance as a society, data like this reminds us that we are still animals.
The parts of the mouth, summarized
We have told you about the functionality of the mouth and, as you may have seen, it goes far beyond chewing. Without going any further, the incisors themselves (front teeth) have 80% communicative and aesthetic functionality and only 20% chewing functionality. The mouth allows us to nourish ourselves, but also to communicate.
Next, we do a brief review of the most important parts of the mouth. Do not miss it.
1. Teeth
Teeth are hard structures that are aligned in an arc in the mouth, in the upper jaw and lower jaw or mandible of the oral cavity. Infants have a total of 20 deciduous teeth, while adults have 32 permanent teeth Its morphology is based on the following keys:
2. The walls of the mouth
The mouth can be considered a room in communication with the outside that has 5 walls The anterior wall is formed by the lips, the muscular entrance door to the digestive system. These muscle tissues are also essential for communication, both oral and gestural, and for showing affection and strengthening bonds in the human species (and other animals).
Beyond the most visual area of the mouth, human beings have 2 lateral walls (cheeks), a lower one (the floor of the mouth and tongue), an upper one (palate) and a posterior one (isthmus), which communicates the mouth itself with the pharynx.
3. The oral flora
You weren’t expecting this last point, right? As has been demonstrated on multiple occasions in recent years, without the bacteria in our body we are nothing. Therefore, we must dedicate these last lines to those microbial agents that make our lives easier and that, unfortunately, sometimes complicate it in an excessive way.
No matter how much the term “flora” is used, it is most appropriate to talk about microbiota or microbiome, since this term refers to the set of colonies of microorganisms that live as commensals or symbionts in any tissue of our body, in this case, the oral cavity. The word “flora” is used to facilitate communication and dissemination, but a bacteria has nothing to do with the kingdom Plantae, so its use is erroneous.
The human mouth is one of the most colonized parts of the body (along with the intestine), since it is in continuous contact with the outside. Hundreds of species of bacteria, viruses and fungi live here. Ecological balance maintains itself in healthy individuals, but immunosuppressive conditions and other events can turn these commensal microbes into a health problem. Unfortunately, it is no coincidence that many HIV patients detect their infection due to a secondary disease in the mouth.
Among the more than 700 species that live in our oral cavity, the genera Streptococcus (soft tissues, saliva and tongue), Actinomyces (supragingival and infragingival level) or Veillonella parvula and Neisseria, detectable in all oral tissue. Apart from these commensal microorganisms, which do not cause any type of illness, there are other bacteria that compromise the health of the oral apparatus: Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) and Porphyromonas gingivalis (P. gingivalis) are usually the main suspects in periodontal diseases.
Summary
We have covered a lot of ground without pause but without haste, but we have left many peculiarities in our mouths. Talking about such a utilitarian cavity (eating, digesting, expressing, speaking and tasting, among other things) is a real challenge, since each of the fronts it covers would serve to write a book on its own.
The central idea of this space, if one can be extracted, is the following: it is not correct to conceive the organs and structures of our body as “watertight mechanisms”. Surely, no matter how much you think you know a structure, you will be surprised by thousands of accessory functionalities that it presents if you do enough research. In the human body, maximizing resources prevails, so it is difficult to find structures that “only serve one thing.” The mouth is a clear example of this.
