I have a few physical attributes that I find truly annoying.  First, I seem to be replacing all the hair I’m losing from my head with hair on the rest of my body, particularly my back.  I’ve seen guys with worse back hair (much worse) but I’m not happy that I’m starting to resemble Bigfoot.  Second is my amazing propensity to sweat.  It can be 50 degrees outside and if I walk more than a couple of blocks I’m in a full-on, shirt-drenching sweat.  It truly makes the summer miserable sometimes.  Third is my mouths ability to produce spit.  It usually doesn’t bother me that much, but when I go to the dentist it’s a royal pain in the ass.  If they don’t have that sucker thing in there just right I can drown in a matter of seconds while the hygienist is blissfully scraping away.

Well, I think I need to embrace my spit glands.  I just read this little item at Freakonomics:

As much as I generally dread the dentist’s chair, I always wind up
learning something. Yesterday was no exception. I was asking Dr. Reiss
about the causes of tooth decay—genetics vs. diet, etc. etc.—when he
began explaining why toothpaste is such a bogus product. Any claims
that toothpaste makes about preventing decay, whitening teeth, etc.,
are totally falacious, Dr. Reiss told me, because the F.D.A. can’t and
won’t allow the ingredients necessary to perform those chores in an
over-the-counter product that children can easily get hold of. (That’s
why he recommends an antibacterial product like GlyOxide, a fairly
foul-tasting but apparently effective means of killing the bacteria
that cause decay.)

The other thing I learned yesterday was
far more interesting, with far greater implications. He told me that
tooth decay in general, even among wealthy patients, is getting worse
and worse, particularly for people in middle age and above. The reason?
An increased reliance on medications for heart disease, high
cholesterol, depression, etc. Many of these medications, Dr. Reiss
explained, produces drymouth, which is caused by a constricted salivary
flow; because saliva kills bacteria in the mouth, a lack of it means
increased bacteria, which leads to increased tooth decay. Given the
choice of taking these medicines versus having some tooth decay, I’m
sure most people would still choose the medicines—but I am guessing
that most people haven’t thought about the link between the two.

So my spit is my friend!  Maybe I’ll discover equally encouraging news about my sweaty ape tendencies, but somehow I doubt it.