Badbreath

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Knowing How To Fight Bad Breath Not as Simple as it May Seem!!

Understanding how to fight bad breath means knowing what actually causes the problem in the first place. Unfortunately, even this is complicated because there are numerous causes of the condition, including:

Poor oral hygiene, especially not brushing in between meals
Diet
Diabetes
Infections in the teeth, throat, or mouth
Periodontal disease
Acid reflux
Upper respiratory infections
Dry mouth, also known as Xerostomia

Now with so many potential causes of bad breath, you might think that you would need an entire medicine cabinet filled with products to help fight the problem. However, before you empty the savings account and march off to the pharmacy to stock up on bad breath products, you may want to first try simply brushing more often-especially in between meals.

When we eat, there are always leftover bits of food that get stuck in between our teeth and in the crevices in our mouth. The oral bacteria most often responsible for bad breath problems need to feed like any living organism and the most abundant source of food in your mouth is what you leave behind after meals. The more plentiful this food, the larger the population of bacteria will become and the quicker you will develop a bad breath problem.

So, when you have a case of chronic bad breath and halitosis, surest means of eliminating the bacteria responsible for the problem is to remove their food source. Brushing in between meals is one of the surest ways to reduce the numbers of bacteria in your mouth. Be sure to brush the back of the tongue as well because this is where the microbes tend to gather as food particles tend to get stuck to the layer of plaque that is always present in this area.

If improving oral hygiene does not drastically reduce your problem, you may need to see your dentist. Clearly, there is no better expert when it comes to knowing how to treat bad breath than your dentist who will use a specialized instrument called a Halimeter to identify just where exactly the odor is coming from. In the majority of cases, the Halimeter will identify the back of the tongue as the culprit behind your halitosis problem. However, if the emissions that cause bad breath are coming from your gum line, then gum disease is the cause of the problem.

A dentist will administer an antimicrobial treatment to kill of the bacteria causing the periodontal disease (gum disease) and try to repair any damage to your gums and supporting bone tissue caused by the ailment. If you fail to treat gum disease properly, the bacteria will spread to other areas of the body and cause your teeth to fall out.

When the source of the bad breath is not within the mouth, then some internal factor is causing problems and it will be time to see a medical doctor for a thorough exam to identify the source of the foul odor. It is extremely rare for bad breath to originate outside of the oral cavity (occurs less than 10% of documented cases), but it is often more serious and must be addressed immediately.

As you can see from the information presented above, knowing how to fight bad breath is not as simple as rinsing the mouth out with some special mouthwash or rinse-there are numerous potential causes and that means that halitosis problems must be addressed immediately rather than masked with breath mints!

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Grandma’s Bad Breath Remedies May Work Better

None of us can honestly say that we haven’t had need for some bad breath remedies from time to time. Even something as simple as a sinus infection is known to cause temporary problems with halitosis. Perhaps we went out and partied a little too hard during New Year’s Eve and found ourselves facing a rather severe case of bad breath. Whatever the reason, there will always come a time when you need to know how to fight bad breath. Believe it or not, grandma and all her quirky home remedies may actually be more effective when it comes to stopping a case of bad breath than all those special products we see in a pharmacy or health store.

The reason for this apparent paradox is the due to the fact that many of the bad breath products you see on shelves are formulated to kill the gram-negative anaerobic bacteria that cause halitosis but they also cause a very bad side effect: dry mouth. Chemicals such as alcohol are common in many of the bad breath products such as mouthwashes and rinses. Although very useful in reducing bacteria levels, they weaken the body’s ability to keep the microbe levels low throughout the day.

All natural antiseptic agents also reduce the levels of anaerobic bacteria but they do so without causing dehydration and lowered salivation rates. Your saliva naturally controls anaerobic bacteria levels so any agent or product that reduces levels will ultimately cause more problems than it creates. Grandma, with all of her quirky home remedies, probably knows that the following natural ingredients will help control bad breath:

Peppermint Oil-has natural antiseptic properties that help naturally reduce gram-negative anaerobic population levels that are responsible for bad breath. Also, peppermint oil is an anti-inflammatory agent that helps open up nasal passages caused by a sinus infection. A clogged nose forces you to breathe from your mouth and will dry it out and lower saliva levels increasing likelihood of halitosis and bad breath.
Thymol-A derivative of Thyme, thymol was a very popular antiseptic in the 19th century and can still be used as a natural means of controlling bad breath problems today.
Eugenol-a known germicide also popular in dentistry during the 19th century, this essential oil will naturally reduce bacteria without causing dehydration or other damaging side effects
Tea Tree Oil-another essential oil with antiseptic properties that can be found in many holistic products for bad breath treatment

There are a number of known natural ingredients, especially essential oils, that can help cure bad breath naturally without risking side effects such as dry mouth. These natural ingredients tend not to have the same elevated levels of antiseptic qualities as some of the bad breath products on the market today, but they will gently and gradually begin reducing the anaerobic bacteria population in your mouth and thus stop halitosis. While these bad breath remedies may not work as fast as some modern treatments, they may actually prove a more plausible long-term solution to your chronic halitosis.

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Most Effective Bad Breath Remedy: Your Own Saliva??

Finding a bad breath remedy is not a problem because not only are stores lined with products designed for help with halitosis-our friends and families tend to have endless home remedies ready to recommend at a moment’s notice. Sadly, the chances of a specially formulated bad breath product being effective in the fight against halitosis may actually be worse than Aunt Betty’s special concoction of apple cider vinegar. So, how is it possible that a simple home remedy for bad breath may actually prove to be a better tool in the fight against halitosis than some product that has been created by teams of scientists using the latest medical research and tools?

Bad breath products created by pharmaceutical companies have no problem addressing the underlying cause of halitosis, namely oral bacteria. These odor-producing microbes constantly dwell within the oral cavity and they fight for real estate with other beneficial forms of bacteria. When there is a balance between these two varieties of bacteria, bad breath is not a problem. However, when the gram-negative anaerobic bacteria (the microbes that cause bad breath or halitosis) population becomes larger due to special circumstances, then the balance is broken and the mouth becomes a cesspool and halitosis results.

Critical to maintaining the balance between the two basic forms of bacteria is saliva. The reason why some of the bad breath products available in the pharmacy fail to be as effective in the fight against halitosis is because they are created from chemicals and other synthesized ingredients that cause dehydration.

When the body is deprived of the water it needs, one of the first functions that falls victim to “budget cuts” is the salivation rate in your mouth. If saliva levels plummet, it is inevitable that the gram-negative anaerobic bacteria will grow faster and produce more of the Volatile Sulfur Compounds that form the gaseous emissions that literally cause the foul odors inherent to a case of chronic halitosis.

The reason why saliva is so critical in the fight against bad breath is because it helps limit the gram-negative anaerobic bacteria in a number of manners, including:

When we swallow, saliva helps wash away the VSC’s
Saliva also helps remove the leftover particles of food from meals and missed during oral hygiene. By limiting the food source, the saliva effectively performs a “birth control” function with the bacteria.
Being a rich source of oxygen, saliva lowers reproductive rates of gram-negative anaerobic bacteria because these microbes breed fastest in climates with low oxygen levels.
Added oxygen also helps increase beneficial bacteria levels which thus limits the amount of space in the oral cavity available to the bacteria responsible for bad breath problems.

So, while bad breath remedies created in labs use the latest medical research and techniques to help control the gram-negative anaerobic bacteria, they often lower salivation rates by inducing dehydration and xerostomia (dry mouth). To date, the most effective bad breath remedy remains something that has been around as long as humans-our own saliva!

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What If Cause of Bad Breath is the Tonsils?

The sources of halitosis are varied and it is entirely possible that the cause of bad breath is the tonsils in some cases. In fact, any time you have an infection in the body it means that there are microorganisms in your body secreting waste products. Plus, infections tend to create foul odors because there are large numbers of white blood cells and bacteria that are killed. Decaying flesh is consumed by bacteria who secrete products like Putrecine, known to cause foul odor. Your body is a constant battleground between antibodies and bacteria so there are a number of potential sources of bad breath due to infection, including:

Liver Disease
Kidney Disease
Periodontal or gum disease
Infections in the mouth, throat, or your teeth

Nearly one third of us had our tonsils removed if we were born prior to 1960 as it was a common procedure in earlier times because doctors feared the spread of infection to other areas of the body when they became diseased. Since tonsils are not actually vital to any normal function, removing them seemed like a harmless way to prevent further problems, including bad breath. However, this practice is not as common today as doctors began to realize that the tonsils actually helped to contain infection rather than serve as a conduit for spreading problems.

But, infected tonsils are actually a very uncommon source of bad breath problems. When chronic bad breath issues do arise and you cannot stop them using normal oral hygiene and products specially formulated to control the bacteria responsible for halitosis, it is time to consult with a dentist as gum disease is actually the most likely factor causing the problem.

A dentist will use what is essentially an odor detector, known as a Halimeter. This instrument actually isolates the source of emissions that cause halitosis. If the dentist cannot detect any substantial emissions coming from the oral cavity, either at the back of the tongue or along the gum line, then one of the internal factors may be the source of the bad breath and it is time to consult with a physician.

However, for bad breath problems that do not go away using normal oral hygiene, advanced periodontal disease is the most likely culprit. This is because the conditions causes the formation of pockets in between the teeth and gums as toxins produced by the anaerobic bacteria responsible for the condition literally dissolve the collagen that holds tissues together.
These pockets are too deep for normal oral hygiene which is why bad breath problems persist even though you are using every measure possible to control the halitosis.

Any bad breath remedy is only effective if it truly addresses the source of the condition. While it is certainly possible that the cause of the bad breath is the tonsils, this is true in less than 2% of the time so look to the gum line whenever standard halitosis remedies fail.

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Curing Bad Breath May Be More Complicated Than You Think!

When thinking about curing bad breath, far too often we think about some mouthwash or dental rinse as the standard solution. While these conventional remedies are proven to kill the bacteria responsible for bad breath in 90% of the cases, it may still be necessary to complement this “cure” with mints and other products that mask symptoms. So why is it that some of us have such trouble when it comes to treating bad breath for more than a few hours at a time?

It is simply scientific fact that microorganisms, like those responsible for causing halitosis, tend to multiply very rapidly-especially when conditions are optimal.
For the anaerobic bacteria whose secretions create the odors that we associate with halitosis and bad breath, optimal conditions occur when we are dehydrated or suffering from xerostomia (dry mouth).

Many of the best bad breath cures available on pharmacy shelves are great when it comes to destroying populations of bacteria in your mouth. However, these so-called cures tend to work well for a few hours and then falter as the day wears on, leaving us susceptible to bad breath problems and the potential social embarrassment that accompany them. The same active ingredients in these bad breath solutions that work wonders on the offending bacteria populations also lead to dehydration and dry mouth. Some of these active ingredients include:

Antiseptics with alcohol as active ingredient
Chlorine Dioxide
Zinc Oxidizing Agents
Sodium Chlorite

A dry mouth is a big problem for anyone with halitosis problems because it means that the oral cavity is virtually defenseless against harmful microbes. Saliva helps reduce the anaerobic bacteria in your mouth throughout the day in a number of ways, including:

Washes away the bacteria by-products (Volatile Sulfur Compounds) which become gaseous and are actually what we smell when thinking about bad breath
Clears away the leftover food in the oral cavity not consumed while eating or removed by oral hygiene
Indirectly lowers bacteria population by increasing oxygen in oral cavity which slows the reproductive rates of anaerobic bacteria and thus reduces the number of sulfur compounds and bad breath odors
Directly lowers bacteria levels by helping produce antibodies that neutralize the offending microbes

So, unless the source of your bad breath is the tonsils or some disorder from within, saliva will help keep halitosis problems at bay by working effectively to keep the anaerobic population and the level of VSC’s to a minimum. Therefore, the best cure for your bad breath is already in your mouth but you just have to make sure that you don’t engage in behaviors or consume things that will lead to dehydration and xerostomia, such as:

Smoking
Drinking alcohol or caffeinated products
Using Stimulants
Talking for prolonged periods
Exercising without properly resting and rehydrating

Curing bad breath really is not possible as the anaerobic bacteria will always be in your mouth but you can naturally control the problem indirectly by ensuring proper levels of salivation in your mouth and avoiding anything-including some bad breath products-that may cause dehydration.

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