10/07/2026
How can diabetes affect my mouth?
Diabetes can affect your mouth by changing your saliva
—the fluid that keeps your mouth wet. Saliva helps prevent tooth decay by washing away pieces of food, preventing bacteria from growing, and fighting the acids produced by bacteria. Saliva also has minerals that help protect tissues in your mouth and fight tooth decay.
Diabetes and some medicines used to treat diabetes can cause the salivary glands in your mouth to make less saliva. When less saliva flows, the risk for dental cavities, gum disease, and other mouth problems increases.
Diabetes can also increase the amount of glucose in your saliva. Diabetes occurs when your blood glucose level, also called blood sugar, is too high. High levels of glucose in your blood can also cause glucose to build up in your saliva. This glucose can feed harmful bacteria that combine with food to form a soft, sticky film called plaque, which causes cavities. If you don’t remove plaque, it can also build up on your teeth near your gum line and harden into a deposit called tartar, which can cause gum disease.
Untreated, these mouth problems can lead to tooth loss. Almost 25% of U.S. adults with diabetes ages 50 and older have severe tooth loss, compared with about 16% of those without diabetes. .
