Dr. Staci Whitman explains how nutritional deficiencies show up in your mouth before anywhere else. Cracks at the corners of your mouth signal zinc or B-vitamin deficiency. Oral ulcers can indicate celiac disease or gluten intolerance. Most doctors miss these signs because they only check your throat, not your tongue, gums, teeth, or mucosa.
We can see issues in your body manifest in your mouth before they may show up symptomatically or even on labs. The mouth is a very important part and component of your physical exam. But what do the doctors do? They usually say, your physician, open up, say ah, and they look, whoop, right back to your tonsils. But they're not looking at your tongue, they're not looking at your gums, they're not looking at your teeth, they're not looking at your mucosa. We can see if someone has iron deficiency or potentially vitamin C deficiency, Maybe if they are celiac or gluten intolerant, they might have oral ulcerations in the mouth. Cracks in the corners of the mouth can be zinc deficiency or B vitamin deficiency. So there's a lot we can see nutritionally in the mouth if you know what you're looking for.
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