Brown coating on the tongue

Brown plaque on the tongue, like any appearance on the surface of the tongue of strata that are unusual for a healthy state, in most clinical cases is a symptom of one or another pathology.

When the doctor asks the patient to show the tongue, it means that he is a good specialist and knows: a white coating in the center confirms his assumption about the presence of a hyperacid gastritis or even a peptic ulcer of the stomach. The fact that the patient is not all right with the gastrointestinal tract, very often speaks and brown plaque on the tongue.

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Causes of brown plaque in the tongue

Why, when the tongue is covered with a brown coating, does the suspicion fall, first of all, on the pathology of the digestive tract? Because among the 24 "components" of our digestive tract under number 7 there is a language - a unique organ, the mucous membrane of which is covered with multilayered flat epithelium with four varieties of papillae. In these papillae are taste buds, and in the muscle layer are located small salivary glands.

The encased tongue, that is, the brown coating revealed in the morning, is a layer accumulated on its surface from the dead cells of the epithelium, the smallest remains of food, bacteria and microbes. Such a coating can be of different thickness, density and degree of mechanical stability, but in any case, its permanent presence is considered a clear sign of diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. This symptom arises due to the fact that with any secretory, suction or motor pathology of the digestive system, the process of transmission of reflex nerve impulses in the digestive tract changes. If the stomach, gallbladder, pancreas and intestine are healthy, the reflex signal goes directly - from the taste buds - and the synthesis of the necessary enzymes and the process of digestion of food begins. In the opposite situation, the signals go in the opposite direction: the diseased organs let the taste receptors know about the problems that have arisen. As a result, the receptor apparatus reacts to these signals with "self-defense techniques" - the appearance of a brown coating on the tongue, as well as white, gray, yellowish-gray or yellow-brown.

Specialists in the field of gastroenterology distinguish the following causes of brown plaque in the language:

• gastritis is corrosive (inflammation of the gastric mucosa due to ingestion of alkaline or acid solutions of high concentration or radioactive substances into its cavity);
• gastritis fibrinous (observed with measles, scarlet fever, sepsis, typhoid fever);
• peptic ulcer of stomach with alcoholism;
• enterocolitis (inflammation of the small and large intestine);
• granulomatous enteritis (Crohn's disease);
• dysbiosis (violation of obligate intestinal microflora), including after the application of antibiotics.

Yellow-brown, as well as a dark brown plaque in the tongue can appear due to chronic inflammation of the duodenum (duodenitis) - with reflux (throwing) of bile into the stomach and esophagus; with insufficiency of motility (dyskinesia) of bile ducts; with cholecystitis and hepatitis, as well as in the case of dehydration (dehydration of the body) with prolonged vomiting or profuse diarrhea.

At the same time, the brown plaque on the root of the tongue is characteristic for the severe form of enterocolitis, as well as for frequent constipation without inflammation of the intestine.

However, there are reasons for the brown plaque in the tongue, not related to the gastrointestinal tract. These include:

• Started mycosis or mucosal candidiasis in the oral cavity. With these pathologies, the tongue is first covered with a touch of white, and then turns into a white-brown coating on the tongue;
• pathology of the lungs;
• autoimmune hereditary blood diseases - hemolytic anemia and erythropoietic uroporphyria, in which intracellular destruction (hemolysis) of erythrocytes occurs;
• hypokorticism or Addison's disease (endocrine disease associated with chronic insufficiency of the adrenal cortex);
• deficiency in the body niacin - vitamin B3 (or PP);
• consequences of the use of certain drugs.

The tongue is covered with a brown blush in almost everyone who smokes a lot (this is the effect on the epithelium of phenols that contain the tar of cigarette smoke).

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Treatment of brown plaque in the tongue

It should be noted that no doctor will take care of the treatment of brown plaque in the language. Why? Because for such therapy there are no drugs, no special procedures.

Therapeutic effects are subject to those diseases, the consequence of which is the appearance in the language of a brown plaque. That is, you need to treat fungal diseases of the oral cavity, diseases of the stomach, gallbladder, duodenum, liver, intestines ... Getting rid of these pathologies will lead to the disappearance of the brown plaque on the tongue.

Popular and effective mouthwashes of medicinal plants (oak bark, sage, chamomile, calendula, St. John's wort) partially help only with fungal lesions of the mucous in the mouth, but only if the corresponding antifungal drugs are used in parallel (which the doctor will appoint).

In all other cases - with a stomach ulcer, dyskinesia bile ducts or enterocolitis - you need to go to the doctor-gastroenterologist.

As for the question, is there a prevention of brown plaque in the language, then here it is necessary to convince people not to abuse alcohol and not to smoke. What else? Do not allow constipation (that is, eat more vegetable fiber), without the need to not take antibiotics.

And to replenish the mentioned vitamin B3 (RR), which every adult needs at least 15 mg every day, it is recommended to eat foods with this vitamin: meat, liver, egg yolks, milk, legumes, buckwheat, whole wheat grain, yeast , mushrooms, beets, peanuts. The human intestine, thanks to beneficial bacteria, is itself capable of producing this vitamin - from the proteinogenic amino acid tryptophan, which we get with the use of cheese, pea beans, sea fish, rabbit and chicken, buckwheat, oatmeal, cottage cheese. But this requires vitamins-assistants - vitamins B2 (riboflavin) and B6 (pyridoxine).

Therefore, doctors advise everyone who has problems with the stomach and intestines and complains of a brown coating on the tongue, regularly taking vitamins of group B.