Bad Breath Causes, Treatments & Cures

Halitosis, more commonly referred to as bad breath, describes a condition in which an unpleasant smelling odor is emitted from the mouth. In the large majority of cases, bad breath will only be temporary, although for some people it may appear to persist throughout the day, and when this occurs, it is referred to as chronic bad breath.

Anyone who suffers from unpleasant smelling mouth odors will usually try to take some action against it, that is, providing they are actually aware that they have bad breath.

This unfortunately, is not often the case, as many sufferers of bad breath do not realize how badly their mouth smells until a friend or colleague mentions it to them. As a result, a person could potentially suffer from bad breath for many years until they finally start to do something about it.

The most common treatment for bad breath involves the use of chewing gum or breath fresheners. These however, only provide a temporary fix and do not address the root cause of the problem. So until the core issues are addressed, that person’s breath will continue to smell and they will always need to rely on measures to disguise it.

How To Test If Your Breath Smells

One of the reasons why people fail to detect when their breath smells badly, occurs due to the fact that when one is exposed to the same odor for a period of 10-15 minutes, that odor appears to disappear and can no longer be smelt. In other words, you become used to your own smell and so your brain stops registering it as something which you should pay attention to.

Exactly the same thing occurs with one’s body odor. A person can have very bad body odor, but because they are exposed to it all the time, they don’t think that they smell when in reality others find their smell extremely offensive.

If you suspect that you have bad breath, or would simply like to check if you do, there are some tests that you can carry out to help you make a quick diagnosis. Below we shall explore some of the most common of these methods.

Hand Test

Cup your hands in front of your face covering your mouth and nose. Breath deeply into your hands and see if your breath smells. Alternatively, you can use a small plastic bag and see if the air that you breath into the bag smells.

This is a very common way of self testing for halitosis, but it is actually not a very effective method for doing so. Most people won’t be able to smell anything, and so they may be falsely led to believe that their breath does not smell when it actually does.

Finger Test

Since the large majority of halitosis is caused by a build up of bacteria on the surface of your tongue, a quick way to find out if your breath smells is to take your finger and rub it along the middle and back sections of your tongue.

After you have done this, smell your finger. If it smells, then you may want to try brushing your tongue in the morning or buying yourself a tongue scraper. Please note though, that if you use this method, you should always ensure that you do so only with clean hands as otherwise you risk transferring bacteria from your fingers into your mouth.

An alternative to using your finger is to use a spoon instead. Simply drag a spoon down and along your tongue, wait a few seconds and then smell it.

Wrist Test

The most effective way to test the smell of your own breath, is to lick the inside of your wrist with as much tongue as you can. After a few seconds as the saliva on your skin begins to dry, smell the licked area. This will give you a good indication as to exactly how badly your breath actually smells.

Bad Breath Meter

Bad breath meters can usually be found in chemists. They involve breathing into a small device, waiting a few seconds and then receiving a score as to how badly your breath smells.

Such devices can be a great way to determine if you have halitosis, and they can also be useful if you are trying to improve the way that your breath smells.

This is because you will be able to accurately gauge the effectiveness of any preventative measures or treatments which you are undergoing, rather than having to rely on your own judgement which may or may not be the same as other people’s.

Ask A Friend

Although the methods described above can help you to determine if you have halitosis, often, the most effective way to identify foul-smelling mouth odors is to ask a friend because they are smelling breath which is not their own and so will quickly be able to detect any unpleasant smells.

Of course, in order to do this, you need to have a good friend who you can trust and will feel comfortable asking such a question. If you don’t have such a friend, try asking a relative as they will usually give you an honest answer.

How you go about asking a friend or relative if you have bad breath is up to you, but make sure that you tell them that you want an honest answer because it is something that you are concerned about and want to do something about. If you have very bad breath, they should be able to tell you this without needing to smell your mouth up close because they will be able to smell it when you are talking.

If you don’t have obviously bad breath, they will probably ask to smell it, or you could ask them if they would mind smelling it. Although this can be embarrassing and uncomfortable at times, asking someone else if you have bad breath is probably the best way to determine just how bad your breath actually is.

If you are not able to ask anyone, pay attention to how people stand when you talk with them. If people avoid getting close to you, or back away when talking to you, then these may be signs that indicate you are suffering from halitosis.

The following video discusses how to tell someone that they have bad breath.

Ask Your Dentist

Dentists are used to looking inside people’s mouths and can quickly determine the overall health of your teeth and gums just by looking at them. They are also used to dealing with different odors from different mouths.

If you are concerned about having halitosis, tell your dentist about it as they will be able to identify if you do and maybe even what could be causing it.

Causes Of Bad Breath

The most common cause of halitosis occurs due to poor oral hygiene habits. For example, not brushing your teeth in the morning and at night can lead to an overgrowth of anaerobic bacteria in the mouth which then causes the breath to smell. Likewise, incorrect brushing habits, or rushed brushing, can result in the mouth not being properly cleaned thereby allowing bad breath causing bacteria to flourish.

In an unclean mouth, bacteria can also feed on trapped food particles between the teeth that have been left over from previous meals. When the bacteria begin to feed and multiply, they emit a sulphurous waste product that gives your mouth the characteristic odor that is associated with bad breath.

To keep your mouth clean and reduce your risk of suffering from halitosis, it is therefore very important that you develop proper brushing habits of the teeth in addition to cleaning the tongue and the gum line. It is also advisable to floss, as very often food which gets trapped between the teeth cannot be reached with a toothbrush.

Alongside your own oral hygiene habits, it is good practice to get into the habit of seeing a dentist on a regular basis. Despite your best efforts at cleaning your teeth, there will invariably be areas of your mouth that you fail to clean or cannot clean using standard methods.

A dentist will be able to clean the areas of your mouth which you cannot, in addition to assessing the overall health of your teeth and gums. They may find for example, that your gums are red and inflamed which generally indicates a bacterial infection that itself could cause bad breath.

Oral Self Assessment

Due to the fact that bad breath predominantly occurs as a result of bacteria build up on the gums, teeth or tongue, you can help to determine if you have bad breath by looking at the overall condition of your mouth.

To start with, first look at your gums. If your gums are red and swollen, or they bleed after you brush your teeth, then you may be suffering from bad breath as a result of bacteria on and under the gums.

You may also notice a white film covering your gums, which again can indicate an overgrowth of bacteria. If left untreated, these bacteria will not only make your breath smell, but they could also cause gum disease and even gum recession.

Another place to look is at your teeth and tongue. If your teeth or tongue have a slight coating over them, then this indicates a build up of bacteria (biofilm) which may be due to eating too much sugar and not brushing your teeth properly.

You should be able to feel this coating over the surface of your teeth with your tongue, and see the coating on the surface of your tongue as a white or yellow covering.

Dry Mouth

If you have a dry mouth it means that you are dehydrated and that you don’t have enough saliva in your mouth. Salvia is important because it helps to digest food, stabilize pH levels and also keeps your mouth clean by controlling bacteria levels. If your saliva levels drop below a certain amount, the health of your mouth starts to suffer and so does the smell of your breath.

When you don’t have enough saliva in your mouth, a condition known as Xerostomia, there will naturally be less oxygen in your mouth because one of the roles of saliva is to oxygenate the mouth. With low levels of saliva, and therefore oxygen, an anaerobic environment is created which allows the bacteria already within the mouth to breed rapidly.

As these bacteria grow, feed and reproduce, they release a sulphurous waste product that gives bad breath its characteristic foul odor. Some of the compounds released by these bacteria as a waste product can affect how the breath smells in different ways.

For example, your breath could end up smelling like faeces (Methyl Mercaptan), like decaying flesh, like garbage rotting in a garbage dump, like rotten eggs (Hydrogen Sulphide) or even smell like a decaying corpse!

It is important to note though, that these bacteria naturally exist in the mouth, and in a healthy mouth, their levels are kept under control. But in an unhealthy mouth they grow quickly, and when they do, your breath starts to smell badly.

The best way to ensure that you have adequate saliva levels in the mouth, is to drink plenty of water throughout the day so that you don’t become dehydrated. It can also be beneficial to cut out salty foods from your diet and to chew gum after meals as that will encourage more saliva to be produced.

Finally, some medications list a dry mouth as a side effect. These can include:  birth control pills, decongestants, antidepressants, high blood pressure medicines, hormone replacement medicines, antihistamines and indigestion medication. If you are taking any of these medications, you may therefore be at an increased risk of suffering from bad breath due to reduced saliva production.

Tongue Related Factors

In the large majority of cases, the primary cause of ones bad breath originates from the tongue. It stands to reason therefore, that the condition of your tongue can affect how bad your breath smells. For example, if your tongue has lots of cracks or grooves in it, usually due to a vitamin B deficiency, bacteria are more likely to grow on the tongue because it can hide in the grooves.

A hairy tongue can also increase one’s susceptibility to suffering from bad breath. This is an inherited condition where the hairs on your tongue, called papillae, are longer than average. With a hairy tongue, more bacteria can grow on it because they become trapped by the hair fibers which increases the tongues overall surface area.

So if you are suffering from bad breath then it is definitely worth looking at the condition of your tongue, because a tongue which is in bad condition, makes it much easier for bacteria to grow and so much more likely that you will suffer from halitosis.

Foods

There are two types of bad breath that occur as a result of the foods you eat. The first is known as temporary halitosis and occurs when you eat foods such as garlic, onions, cabbage or curry. Temporary halitosis may also be caused by smoking cigarettes or by drinking too much coffee.

In such cases, simply reducing or eliminating your intake of the offending food or drink can prevent you from suffering with food related halitosis.

The second type of bad breath caused by food, occurs as chronic halitosis where you have bad breath all the time. This tends to be caused by eating lots of sugar or refined carbohydrates throughout the day. Such foods are essentially like giving the bacteria in your mouth fertilizer, and so can result in a rapid overgrowth of bacteria that produces a persistently foul-smelling mouth.

The best way to deal with this type of bad breath is to cut out sugar from your diet as much as possible, as this will make it much easier for you to keep bacteria levels in the mouth under control with a good oral hygiene routine.

In addition to brushing and flossing your teeth, you should also try using a tongue scraper, because in almost all cases, people who consume too much sugar have extensive bacterial overgrowth on their tongue which appears as a white or yellowish surface coating.

Furthermore, those with a bacterial overgrowth on their tongue are also likely to suffer from an intestinal candida yeast infection. However, as the condition of your teeth and mouth improves, the candida yeast will eventually return back to manageable levels.

But during this transition period you may notice periods of reduced mental clarity, or brain fog, as a result of a candida die-off reaction. This process can be speed up by taking a high quality garlic supplement such as AllicinMax or Allimax.

Smoking

Smoking can affect your breath in two ways. The first is a temporary effect and occurs while you are smoking a cigarette and shortly after you have finished it. This gives you the characteristic smoker’s breath, and if anyone kisses you after you have been smoking, they may describe it like kissing an ashtray for this very reason.

Smoking can also have longer term effects on your breath by adversely affecting the health of your teeth and gums. For example, smoking increases your risk of gum disease which occurs when bacteria become established under your gum line.

Since it is difficult for the average person to clean properly under the gum line, this can lead to a persistent bad smell from the mouth until those bacteria have been removed. This however, usually requires a trip to the dentist.

Dentures

Dentures can be a major cause of bad breath in the elderly if they are not cleaned properly. The main reason for this is because dentures tend to trap food particles quite easily, which, if left to decay, can quickly cause bacteria to become established on the dentures.

The best way to avoid bad breath from dentures is simply to ensure that they are adequately cleaned after each meal and do not contain any trapped food fragments within them.

Improper Food Digestion

A lesser known cause of bad breath is improper digestion of food. This occurs when you eat too much food in one sitting and it is later regurgitated in the mouth producing a sickly taste in the back of the throat that increases bacterial growth.

Improper digestion can also be caused by not chewing your food properly or by not chewing it for long enough before you swallow. In this case, your breath may smell badly when you burp.

Fortunately, this can be quite easy to remedy, as all you have to do is to eat less and chew more. If you are feeling bloated after meals, then you may also benefit from taking a digestive enzyme supplement with your meals.

Plant based enzymes tend to work best as they carry out their digestive action for longer in the intestinal tract, but they do tend to be quite expensive.

A cheaper alternative, which also works well, is an animal derived enzyme supplement called pancreatin which contains amylase, lipase and protease enzymes to digest carbohydrates, fats and proteins.

Metabolic Conditions

Sometimes a person may suffer from halitosis even though they have good oral hygiene habits and visit their dentist on a regular basis. In such cases, the cause of their bad breath may in fact be due to a more serious underlying condition such as a metabolic disorder.

One such disorder is diabetes which can cause a build up of ketones in the blood. Since one of the ways that the body gets rid of ketones is through the breath, diabetes sufferers may experience bad breath as a result of their condition. Other conditions such as liver or kidney problems may also produce similar effects one’s breath.

If you are suffering from a persistent bad breath but feel as though you are eating well and have good oral hygiene habits, you may therefore want to consider visiting your doctor just to check that your bad breath is not due to something more serious.

However, it should be noted that sometimes a change in diet can cause halitosis. For example, a high protein and low carbohydrate diet can lead to ketosis which subsequently makes your breath smell although usually not for very long. So if there are any changes which you have made to your diet recently, allow yourself some time to adjust to those changes before going to see your doctor.

Post Nasal Drip

Another more serious cause of halitosis occurs due to post nasal drip (PND). Post nasal drip bad breath is caused by mucus from the nose seeping down into the throat and then onto the tongue. As the mucus begins to coat the tongue, it starts to produce a foul smell which can sometimes be extremely overpowering.

Apart from seeking medical treatment for this condition, usually the most effective way to avoid post nasal drip halitosis is with a tongue scraper. This can be used to scrape off the mucus that collects on your tongue throughout the day, thereby reducing the build up of bacteria that can lead to foul-smelling breath.

A tongue scraper is generally recommended over a toothbrush for cleaning the tongue, because if you brush your tongue too hard, you may develop what is known as burning tongue syndrome. This will then result in the tongue becoming overly sensitive to hot, cold or acidic foods, which can subsequently make certain foods unpleasant to eat by affecting how they taste.