Tongue – An Index of Diseases

No matter what importance we give to our tongue but doctors would first examine your tongue whenever you would visit them. This is because it is said that tongue reflects all the diseases of your body. Tongue is basically pink in colour.

When the tongue is white either entirely or in patches it indicates some bacterial infection. This is rectified by giving anti-bacterial drugs and the tongue again becomes pink.

Sometimes it may turn black. The reason behind this could be some dietary faults or your medicine box.

The top of the tongue can easily change the colour. This can be due to some foods that leave some colour, smoking, chewing tobacco, drinking more of tea or coffee can leave the tongue in dark brown colour. This can easily be overcome by simple cleaning your tongue while brushing the teeth. This kind of staining is not permanent but chewing tobacco can cause oral cancer.

The top of the tongue contains a protein known as keratin, which helps in the growth of hair. Hair like little projections called filiform papillae, which are not really hair and are also not visible but in some conditions like bacterial infections, taking some antibiotic and having very dry mouth can cause them to grow and they get noticed.

Sore spots or cancer spots in the mouth can occur anywhere and are very much painful. Causes could be eating very sour foods, cold, fever or biting of the tongue. They take ten days to get over but some can take more long so consult a doctor whenever you have this problem.

Tongue turns dark red whenever there is deficiency of vitamin B12. This condition is known as pellagra. Other nutritional deficiencies also cause this discolouration of the tongue. Anaemia can also be one of the cause.

Burning mouth or tongue is one of the other diseases causing a problem. When a person is anaemic the tongue becomes pale and smooth.