A Mouthful of Fun Facts About Your Mouth

The mouth is a weird and wonderful place! You love it because you eat and talk and sing and laugh with it, but it’s also a surprisingly complex little bodily environment. So, we thought we’d share some fun and interesting facts about your mouth that you probably don’t know.

When you’re done checking out these facts about your mouth, you can learn more by heading over to our posts on facts about your teeth and facts about your tongue, too.

Interesting Facts About the Human Mouth

• There are as many bacteria inside your mouth as there are people on Earth.

• Plaque forms from excess bacteria.

• Right-handed people tend to chew on the right side of their mouth, and left-handed people tend to chew on the left side.

• If you didn’t have saliva in your mouth, you wouldn’t be able to taste anything.

• The average human mouth produces nearly 38,000 liters of saliva in a lifetime. That’s enough to fill two standard swimming pools!

• And speaking of pools, chlorine can wear down your enamel, so keep your mouth closed if you swim in pools frequently.

• Your tongue is the only group of muscles that function without any skeletal support.

• Heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, and other diseases have all been linked to poor oral health.

• Even though they don’t make an appearance until a child is 6 months to 1 year old, teeth begin forming before a child is even born.

• Yes, many of your thousands of taste buds are located on your tongue. But they’re elsewhere, too! Some are found on your epiglottis, in the back of your throat, in your nose and sinuses, and even down into the upper portion of your esophagus.

• Smiling and laughing make you feel good, but they’re also good for your health; they reduce stress and provide a boost to the immune system.

• Many surveys have found that about 50% of people say someone’s smile is the first thing they notice about them.