Badbreath - Part 2

Archive for ‘badbreath’ Category

Could Source of Bad Breath be the Stomach?

It is possible that the cause of your bad breath is your stomach. While possible, it is not probable but when bad breath problems do arise from within, there is great cause for concern. This is because 90% of all problems associated with halitosis and bad breath actually originate within the oral cavity and tend to be caused either by gum disease or large concentrations of anaerobic bacteria living on the tongue or other soft tissues. However, there are cases where a major ailment may be the source of the problem, including:

Kidney Disease
Liver Disease
Pneumonia
Bronchitis
Throat Infection
Acid Reflux

Acid reflux is actually the most likely candidate when it comes to bad breath problems originating from within. The condition is caused by a malfunctioning valve at the top of the stomach that allows acids and other digestive juices to enter the oral cavity, bringing with it a very acidic form of bad breath. While it may begin as a mere inconvenience, the fact is that acid reflux can literally dissolve the enamel on your teeth and leave them more susceptible to decay and rot. Common causes of acid reflux and the bad breath that comes with it are:

Ulcers
Hiatal Hernia
Caffeinated Products
Alcohol
Fried Foods
Tobacco
Citrus Fruits
Large Meals

A throat infection is another internal cause of bad breath problems but it will not be the acidic kind associated with indigestion. A throat infection can be caused by a number of ailments, including:

Tonsillitis
Strep Throat

Kidney and liver diseases are also known to create problems with bad breath but they tend to produce a rather distinctive odor that smells more like rotting flesh than the sulfur or “rotten eggs” smell typical of common halitosis. These diseases often cause gases to build up in the stomach and may cause belching which produces a very foul form of bad breath that should raise immediate concern and prompt you to consult with a physician.

Finally, upper respiratory infections are also common causes of bad breath that originates from within. The bad breath associated with these ailments tends to resemble that produced by a throat infection.

While it is possible to have bad breath problems originating from sources other than the mouth, they tend to be quite rare. However, in all cases, the bad breath is very distinctive and dissimilar to the typical halitosis originating in the oral cavity. Fortunately, while we tend not to notice bad breath when it is caused by oral bacteria due to the fact that our noses quickly become accustomed to the odor-this is not the case with any of the causes listed above as they are rare and tend to stick out.

Curing bad breath in these cases will require the attention of a medical doctor as your dentist will not be able to help with the problem. Thus, if the source of your bad breath is the stomach, do not delay seeking medical attention immediately as there is clearly something very wrong and it is more likely treatable if caught early enough.

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Failing To Stop Bad Breath Could Lower Lifespan

Who among us wouldn’t like to stop bad breath once and for all? We have all been in those situations when we suddenly found ourselves with a monster case of halitosis and had to speak with someone at length. You suddenly begin to see them shifting back on their feet and slowly putting more distance between you and them. One wrong impression due to a case of bad breath and you can spend a lifetime trying to convince them that the problem was only momentary and not some reflection upon your oral hygiene habits. Perhaps the source of the bad breath is the stomach and is caused by stress and acid reflux but more often it is caused by bacteria and you don’t even know that you have a problem.

This is actually more common than you might think because the nerves in your nose that serve as odor receptors do shut down when exposed to continuous levels of halitosis. In fact, this can truly be a disadvantage especially when chronic halitosis is caused by gum disease.

The mildest form of gum disease is called gingivitis and the basic symptoms include:

Gums sore to the touch
Gums may bleed when brushing or eating some hard food such as an apple
Inflammation of gingival tissue
Reddening of the gums
Chronic halitosis

Gum disease literally begins as a mild infection of your gingival tissue caused by bacteria that live along your teeth and gums. When plaque forms, these bacteria can breed faster because they are protected from your saliva which naturally helps prevent bad breath and gum disease by controlling the population of harmful microbes. Unless you remove the plaque every day with brushing and flossing, it will eventually harden until it becomes tartar.

Once you have tartar on your teeth, gum disease is already present and the bacteria will reproduce even faster behind this hardened layer.
This will make both the infection and bad breath problem worse and further inflame your gingival tissue. The disease will then progress to an advanced stage known as periodontitis where it the infection then spreads to your bone and gingival tissue that surround and support your teeth. At this point, the only way to treat the bad breath problem is to stop the infection causing the advanced gum disease.

If you fail to treat the gum disease, pockets will start to form in between the gums and the teeth.
These pockets will become very deep and will serve as a prime breeding ground for the bacteria because normal oral hygiene cannot remove them. The pockets will continue to grow as the toxins produced by the bacteria continue to dissolve and destroy both gum and bone tissue.

In time, teeth will loosen and fall out and your bad breath problem will no longer be tops on the priority list because a host of medical problems may ensue once the bacteria spread beyond the oral cavity. Some major health concerns posed by these dangerous microbes include:

Infective Endocarditis
Increased chances of developing coronary artery disease
Increased chances of stroke

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Avoid Bad Breath Products Made From Alcohol

In many cases, we tend to have entire cabinets or drawers filled with bad breath products that just never seem to really get the job done properly. While some of them will undoubtedly take care of the halitosis for a few hours, isn’t there anything that can just get us through an entire day without resorting to popping breath mints every time we have a meeting or some other personal engagement? Why is it in this age of modern science that we cannot solve something as common and seemingly simple as bad breath?

The fact is that bad breath is no common problem and there is always some underlying factor causing the condition. Some typical causes of bad breath include:

An infection in the mouth, throat, or tooth
Gum Disease
Poor oral hygiene and especially when it comes to brushing after meals
Low-Carb Diets
Xerostomia

At the heart of all these causes of halitosis and bad breath is one common denominator: oral bacteria. Known as anaerobic bacteria because they thrive in any environment where the oxygen levels are low, the microbes like to eat whatever we eat. Thus, when we fail to brush after a meal, we are leaving behind plenty of food for these microscopic parasites to dine upon. The more food we leave behind, the faster they grow.

Most bad breath products are designed to kill off these stinky microbes responsible for our halitosis problems. And truthfully, almost any product on the pharmacy shelf that has been created to reduce bad breath problems will do this very thing: kill the bacteria.

Many mouthwashes use alcohol as the active ingredient because it is a natural antiseptic and will neutralize the microbes responsible for bad breath. However, alcohol is a diuretic meaning it causes dehydration-and that can lead to Xerostomia.

Xerostomia is really just a fancy name for dry mouth-and lower levels of saliva in the mouth. Now you may be wondering what saliva has to do with controlling bad breath, but it actually is very vital in the fight against anaerobic bacteria for the following reasons:

Saliva has a high concentration of oxygen which means that it naturally slows the breeding rates of anaerobic bacteria
Saliva helps wash away the sulfur compounds produced by anaerobic bacteria. These compounds become gaseous easily and these emissions are what we actually smell when someone with bad breath exhales.
Saliva removes the leftover food particles and dead skin cells that the anaerobic bacteria feed upon. By helping to remove the food source, saliva naturally helps control the population of bacteria so that less waste is produced-and thus, lowers the emissions associated with halitosis and bad breath.

So, while many products may in fact help stop bad breath momentarily, they can create more problems than they solve is they also lead to dehydration. Therefore, avoid any bad breath products made with alcohol or other known diuretics.

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What You Need In Your Bad Breath Bible!

Compiling a bad breath bible may seem like an extreme measure to take for such a relatively mild medical issue. Ultimately, we all end up with halitosis problems from time to time and they are most typically caused by eating spicy foods loaded with garlic and onions-right? Wrong! Transitory bad breath is caused by what you consume and it goes away as soon as the offending food has passed through your body and disposed of during a bowel movement. Chronic halitosis, on the other hand, is most often caused by oral bacteria but there are other possibilities to consider:

Systemic disorders such as Diabetes, Upper Respiratory Infections, and Kidney or Liver Disease all may cause bad breath problems
Low-Carbohydrate diets are designed to induce ketosis, a rapid state of fat-burning. Ketones, essential to this fat-burning process, alter blood chemistry and cause bad breath as a result. In addition, a low-carbohydrate diet tends to diuretic and lead to Xerostomia, another common factor in chronic halitosis problems.
Acid Reflux can lead to a rather unique and acidic form of bad breath and is caused by a number of factors, including: alcohol, smoking, chocolate, and eating fried foods

A bible for bad breath problems does not necessarily need to take into account any of these potential causes of halitosis. It is important, however, for you to realize that these are possibilities to consider if your fight against bad breath appears to be failing and the condition does not go away.

What you do want to include in your bible are the two most common factors that lead to accelerated growth of the oral bacteria responsible for 90% of bad breath problems:

Poor oral hygiene
Dehydration or dry mouth (Xerostomia)

When you brush or floss, the ideal would be to eliminate the bacteria responsible for halitosis and bad breath. Truthfully, there are a lot of great products available with antiseptic qualities that will greatly reduce the population of bacteria that cause bad breath.

However, because these bacteria feed upon the very foods that we eat ourselves, it is equally important to “starve” the microbes by removing the leftover particles that we did not swallow. By keeping the mouth clean of food particles, you are naturally stopping bad breath by preventing the bacteria from breeding faster which is what happens when food sources are abundant and oral hygiene is poor.

Aside from good oral hygiene and brushing after every meal, the other big thing to watch out for is dry mouth. Saliva is perhaps the most effective means of preventing bad breath because it reduces bacteria levels in a number of ways, including:

Provides oxygen to the oral cavity. Anaerobic bacteria, the microbes responsible for halitosis, breed much faster in low-oxygen environments. Thus, saliva will lower reproductive rates by oxygenating the mouth. Fewer bacteria, less bad breath.
Has enzymes that help stimulate production of antibodies that directly attack and neutralize anaerobic bacteria.
Washes away the food particles that bacteria feed upon and thus starves them which naturally reduces numbers and problems with bad breath.

So long as your bad breath bible includes methods for improving oral hygiene and avoiding behaviors or simple bad breath products that lead to dehydration, you should have all the information you need to reduce chronic halitosis naturally and avoid the embarrassment associated with the problem.

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How To Cure Bad Breath Naturally

For anyone suffering from chronic halitosis, the ability to cure bad breath once and for all would be a true gift and help eliminate a huge source of potential embarrassment. Troubles with bad breath can carry over into personal relationships and even affect the development of our careers. While we try our best to mask the situation with candies, mints, and an entire medicine cabinet filled with bad breath products, it is very common for the problem to return in just a few short minutes. Although companies do develop products with the best of intentions, sometimes these bad breath cures do little more than mask the problem and ultimately make it worse due to the active ingredients themselves.

The active ingredients in many bad breath products tend to cause dehydration and alcohol is one of the most common, especially in antiseptic agents. The reason why bad breath remedies tend to be antiseptics is because the most common factor in halitosis is anaerobic bacteria.

Like all organisms, the bacteria living in your mouth need to eat and get rid of waste. Bacteria typically feed upon whatever leftover food crumbs linger in the mouth after eating. When no food particles can be found, they will even feed upon dead skin cells. For people with bad oral hygiene habits, there tend to be a lot of food pieces left in the mouth for these microorganisms to feed upon. However, for bad breath products and other hygiene products, the use of chemicals and agents such as alcohol tend to cause dehydration and thus lower the amount of saliva in your mouth.

Saliva is very important in the quest to prevent bad breath because it naturally helps to keep the bacteria levels low in the mouth and thus reduce problems with halitosis. Anaerobic bacteria breed best when oxygen levels are very low. Saliva has a high concentration of oxygen and thus will help control the bacteria population by slowing the rate of reproduction. Plus, saliva has special enzymes that help stimulate the production of agents that attack and destroy anaerobic bacteria.

So, while many bad breath products rightfully help to reduce the levels of anaerobic bacteria in your mouth, those that cause dehydration actually make things worse. For this reason, you want to avoid products made with alcohol and even many of those produced with other chemical agents as dehydration is a common side effect. Instead, take a page from the bad breath bible and stick with bad breath remedies that use only natural ingredients, such as:

Vitamin C-citrus fruit have high levels of vitamin C which help fight bad breath by helping to boost immune system efficiency and the production of antibodies that neutralize anaerobic bacteria
Peppermint Oil
Lemon Juice mixed with water
Tea Tree Oil

While we can never fully rid ourselves of the anaerobic bacteria that cause bad breath, we can take steps to reduce their numbers while ensuring that saliva levels remain high in the mouth. To do so and to cure bad breath, use products made with natural ingredients that have antiseptic properties or those that boost the effectiveness of the immune system.

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