Restoring the Flow of Precious Saliva
IRP Researchers Aim to Regenerate Damaged Salivary Glands
It’s easy to take our saliva for granted. Most people have so much of it that they think nothing of spitting it out into a trash can when they finish chewing a stick of gum. Perhaps only people who have lived without it truly understand the great gift that is a perpetually moist mouth.
“Persistent dry mouth causes lots of problems with quality of life, and people forget how important saliva is until they lose it,” says IRP senior investigator Matthew Hoffman, B.D.S., Ph.D.
In honor of World Oral Health Day on March 20, a celebration of scientific efforts to reduce the burden of oral disease, I talked with Dr. Hoffman about his lab’s efforts to understand the biology of salivary gland dysfunction and translate that knowledge into treatments that bring relief to the many people suffering from it.
