Introduction
Every body has a tongue. The tongue is a soft and flexible muscle and if we didn’t have a tongue we wouldn’t be able to taste, talk or swallow and we wouldn’t be able to digest our food. In good health the tongue is a reddish/pink colour. But smokers can get a black tongue and the tongue is also a popular spot for cancer to grow because the cells grow really fast. Saliva also helps the tongue by killing the microbes so we don’t get infections. Compared to other organs the tongue has a lot of functions.
Physiology
The tongue is a soft and flexible muscle and it always has work to do. It’s got a really rough surface so it can pick up the food. It has got a rough surface because of the bumps called papillae (taste buds). The taste buds are all different sizes. There are 3 kinds of taste buds, filiform which are pointy, fongiform which are flat and calciforme which are bigger with a furrow around them. The bottom of the tongue is attached to the mouth by a bit of tissue called the frenulem. When we are babies we have more taste buds than when we are adults and older.
Taste
We can taste because we have taste buds. Taste buds are little cells that detect chemicals, identify the taste and then it send nerve signals to your brain. There are about 9000 taste buds on our tongue but when we get older we lose some, they’re usually found on the surface of the tongue. The taste buds get remade every week or two and they are 1/200 of a cm. Taste buds know 5 principle tastes; salty, sour, sugary, bitter and umami. Salty is tasted at the tip and the side of the tongue. Sugary is tasted at the tip of the tongue, sour at the side and bitter at the back. Scientists still haven’t found out about umami. Umami is found in Chinese foods. The most sensitive of our tastes is sour. We lose 80% of our taste if we can’t smell.
Saliva
Saliva is made by 3 different kinds of glands; one behind the ears, another underneath the jaw and the other underneath the tongue. Saliva is sent to the mouth by tubes. In the glands there are 2 different cells; mucous secreting cells and serous cells. Mucous is a sticky protector of fluids. The serous cell contains important chemicals which are amalyse, lisosyme, IGA (immunoglobulin A) and lactoferrin. One pair of gland has cells, another pair only produces mucous and the other only serous. In saliva there are also enzymes that digest proteins. We make 1000 to 1500 ml of saliva per day. Saliva has a lot of functions such as keeping our mouth closed when eating, and helps us to digest. It also helps us to keep our teeth clean, make food into small balls to make it easier to swallow and it also helps us so we don’t get infections in our mouth. It also kills microbes and makes our mouths comfortable. The beginning of the production of saliva starts by smelling.
Function
The tongue has a lot of functions, such as tasting the food and seeing if it is hot or cold. It pushes the food around our mouths so it’s easier to chew. It mixes saliva with the food so it easier to swallow and it helps keep our teeth clean. At the back of our mouths there is a cartilage called the epiglottis, it closes the windpipe when we swallow. The tongue helps us talk with the help of our teeth and lips, it does a lot of work when we talk by doing lots of different movements. It has a lot of other functions as well, like pushing saliva back down your throat when you are asleep. For some people the tongue helps them play and do all sorts of things, for an example my dad uses his tongue a lot. It’s also good for sticking stamps to letters and licking ice cream.
Health
We cut our tongue in all sorts of ways. We cut it by falling, by tripping, falling from bikes and when we get hit in the jaw, we can also cut it on paper. Big cuts can be up to 1 cm long and we can also cut the total end of the tongue off. If it’s a small cut it can heal in 10 to 15 minutes but if it’s a big cut it might take 4 to 7 days to heal. Some big cuts need stitches, if the cut is big we should take a diet for 2 to 4 days, we shouldn’t eat hot or spicy foods. If the saliva glands aren’t working well we could get problems in the mouth. If we’re in good health we should have a reddish/pink color. If we have a fever or our digestive system isn’t working we get a yellow tongue, and if you smoke or bacteria are growing on the tongue we get a black tongue. Cancer usually grows on the tongue because the cells grow fast here.
Conclusion
The tongue is very important because it helps us talk, digest and swallow. With the help of our taste buds it also helps us taste. But if we cut our tongue it’s harder to taste and if we cut the end of our tongue off it’s even harder to talk. But the tongue heals very fast and also helps prevent infections enter our mouths.