Scraping the tongue is a common practice in India and East Asia, and it is considered a routine part of daily hygiene. In these regions not scraping your tongue is as bad as not brushing your teeth. The health and appearance of the tongue is an important diagnostic signifier in eastern medicine and is a consideration in western medicine as well. The practice of scraping excess coating off the tongue is slowly being recognized in the west as something helpful, and dentists are starting to recommend this ancient practice here in the west now too. It should come as no surprise that there are finally some studies being done that scientifically validate tongue scraping from a variety of angles. As with many things, we usually wait for science to confirm what eastern medicine has known for thousands of years. Here are some things we know from both an eastern and western perspective.
1. It Gives you a Cleaner Tongue
This is the most obvious factor. Having a tongue coated in thick moss (as Traditional Chinese Medicine calls it) does not look nice, especially if it is a funky color. No one likes having dirty looking teeth, I am sure most people don't like having a dirty tongue. Surely more people will see your teeth than your tongue, but still you know it is there. Also, various aspects of the tongue and its coating, color, consistency, spots, bumps can indicate various problems in the body, as the tongue is a map of the organ system in eastern medicine. This is why doctors of Traditional Chinese Medicine don't want you to scrape your tongue before coming in to see them. Ayurvedic Medicine (the traditional medical practices of India) views the tongue coating as toxins, (Ama) rising to the surface and will be reabsorbed into the system if it is not removed, but one thing that science has confirmed is that it also gives you the ability to taste more.
2. Better Sense of Taste
Scraping your tongue may not help you pick out better outfits, or listen to more sophisticated music, but I can help you improve your sense of taste. All that coating on your tongue prevents those 2,000-10,000 taste buds from revving as much information. We loose taste buds a we age, meaning that children have a more acute sense of taste. No wonder they are such picky eaters! But in addition to good looks and better taste is the effect is has on our breath.
3. Combats Bad Breath
It should come as little surprise that the funky gunky coating on your tongue might contribute to bad breath. This is because the tongue has a huge variety of micro organisms that dwell on its surface and in its cracks and fissures. Just like in the gut, there must be a balance between these organisms, and when the more harmful organisms win the battle in over populating the tongue, then more sulfur and ammonia are produced, giving us bad breath. Many things can contribute to the mouth being overrun with harmful bacteria, lifestyle, diet, age, etc. but suspect number one is the very products we use to sanitize our mouths, namely fluoride and antiseptic mouthwash. Tongue scraping is a natural way to support the delicate balance of micro organisms in the mouth.
4. Supports Healthy Oral Biome
As mentioned above, like the gut, the biome of the mouth has a special balance and when that balance is disrupted imbalance sets in and the field is a ripe environment for disease. The mouth needs a variety of micro organisms to inhabit the tongue in order to maintain a healthy balance. The aim of antiseptic mouth wash and fluoride (in our toothpaste and tap water) is to kill bacteria, unfortunately this kills the good bacteria right along with the bad bacteria, and the more harmful bacteria is likely to gain the upper hand when all the micro organisms left start repopulating. This is the same problem with the gut when using antibiotics, and why doctors are starting to be more cautious about prescribing them too often. Some doctors even prescribe probiotics to help repopulate the gut after a round of antibiotics.
So how does tongue scraping help? If we are scraping off harmful bacteria we are also scraping off the good bacteria, right? Tongue scraping has been proven to help encourage a wider variety of micro organisms to bloom on the tongue. The analogy is that tongue scraping is like tilling the soil. Fluoride and antiseptic mouthwash do not do this, they cause the opposite effect to happen. Many of the micro organisms that are killed off from day to day by our tooth paste, tap water, and mouthwash, are responsible for metabolizing the sulfur that gives us bad breath, so antiseptic mouthwash may give you fresh breath in the short term, but does the opposite long term. On the bright side, studies have shown that it only takes the mouth biome about for days to recover from these insults, it is surprisingly resilient, but the biome of the mouth and tongue is not just responsible for the health of the mouth, it is vital for maintaining cardiovascular health as well!
5. Supports Cardiovascular Health
The micro organisms that thrive in our mouths are very busy in the act of existing and that means metabolism. Just as some of these organisms produce sulfur and ammonia, which give us bad breath, and others metabolite these substances to fight bad breath, some of these organisms product other substances that are vital for good health. The primary substance I am thinking of is nitric oxide. We take in nitrates through our diet, if we are eating leafy greens, beats and other things high in nitrates, and these nitrates are turned into nitric oxide in the body. Some of the organisms in the mouth play an important role producing it.
Nitric oxide is crucial for vasodilation, working to prevent high blood pressure and also plays an important role in the plasticity and flexibility of arteries. Along with this, it helps to fight against inflammation, which in arteries causes cholesterol to stick to the arterial walls and eventually clog arteries. We have long been under the impression that cholesterol causes heart attacks, but the lesser known reason that it clogs up arteries is that inflammation gives it a perfect surface to stick. Nitric oxide not only keeps the arterial walls flexible, but helps to keep them smooth. More so, a lack of nitric oxide in the body plays a role in erectile dysfunction, and the drugs that target ED help keep the nitric oxide from breaking down. The organisms in the mouth produce nitric oxide from nitrates and then the body slowly reabsorbs it like a time released capsule, distributing it throughout the body. The importance of oral health and balance is really just being understood in its role in supporting cardiovascular health.