It really is a lot easier than you think to get rid of bad breath. You don’t necessarily need to go out and buy a bunch of fancy mouth wash products or other over-the-counter bad breath cures if you understand what causes the problem in the first place: oral bacteria. Actually, there are hundreds of different types of bacteria in the mouth and some of them are beneficial to your health while the ones that cause bad breath are harmful and can even lead to a number of problems beyond halitosis, including:
- Gum Disease
- Weakened Immune System
- Increased risk for heart disease and stroke
The harmful microbes are actually referred to as “Gram-negative” bacteria and they prefer to live in conditions with a low oxygen concentration. The beneficial microbes prefer an oxygen-rich environment and when these bacteria are plentiful in the mouth, bad breath problems do not occur. But, when the oral cavity becomes dry and devoid of saliva, this is when the gram-negative bacteria start to reproduce faster and can cause problems with bad breath.
Dry mouth is one of the biggest factors in chronic bad breath problems. Human saliva can help to naturally prevent halitosis because it has a high oxygen concentration and will therefore slow the reproduction of the harmful bacteria. This is important because gram-negative bacteria produce waste products after consuming food particles and dead skin cells in the mouth. These by-products are known as Volatile Sulfur Compounds and the three most common are:
- Hydrogen Sulfide
- Dimethyl Sulfide
- Methyl Mercaptan
It is these compounds that actually create the odor that we associate with when thinking about bad breath. Not only does saliva add oxygen to the oral cavity and lower reproduction of gram-negative bacteria, it also helps wash away the sulfur compounds along with the food particles and dead skin cells upon which the microbes feed. Thus, by taking away the food sources, gram-negative bacteria populations are further controlled by saliva.
Finally, saliva helps prevent bad breath by actually helping to neutralize the bacteria themselves. Specialized enzymes are contained in saliva that help in the production of antibodies that attack and destroy anaerobic bacteria. With fewer bacteria, there are thus fewer VSC’s in the mouth to produce bad breath.
So, the most natural and effective means of treating bad breath (in nearly 90% of the cases) is to make sure that salivation rates remain high. Any behavior or substance that causes dehydration will thus need to be avoided and the most common causes of dry mouth include:
- Smoking Tobacco Products
- Drinking Alcohol
- Excessive Exercise/Talking
- Consumption Of Caffeinated Products
- Use Of Stimulants
By simply staying away from known sources of dehydration and making sure to practice good oral hygiene (brushing and flossing daily and being sure to cleanse the back of the tongue where gram-negative bacteria like to congregate), you can avoid bad breath problems in the future. You may even want to chew on some sugarless gum to stimulate salivation as well. See—learning how to get rid of bad breath was a lot easier than you thought, right?
