Five Tips for Curing Bad Breath
1. Floss properly
2. Brush properly for at least 2 minutes, twice per day
3. Use an antibacterial mouth wash
4. Clean your tongue
5. Avoid foods with volatile oils
Bad breath is an embarrassing problem endured by millions of people all around the world. Each of these individuals is unique and therefore the cause and ultimately the best solution to get rid of their bad breath will differ. These six tips for curing bad breath should be of interest to anyone suffering from and wanting to alleviate this problem.
Tip One: Floss Properly
Flossing with dental floss or tape helps to reduce bad breath because it cleans the difficult to reach areas between the teeth that would otherwise be an ideal breeding ground for bad breath causing bacteria. You see, small particles of the foods we eat can become trapped in the small space between teeth, this food then becomes a food source not for us as was intended but for the bad breath causing bacteria that live in the mouth.
Many people dislike flossing because they find it awkward and time consuming, floss holders that look much the same as a toothbrush and suspend the floss between two arms have made flossing quick and easy and should be done by anyone serious about getting rid of bad breath prior to flossing.
Tip Two: Brush the Teeth Correctly
Many people with bad breath will know the frustration that comes with cleaning your teeth five plus times a day but with little improvement in curing bad breath long term. The reason is the vast majority of us brush incorrectly. Either we spend too little time or we focus on the wrong areas.
We all want to have nice, clean and white smiles so often we focus on cleaning our front teeth when most of the chewing takes place at the back teeth. To clean properly we should brush along the gum line from front to back in small, tooth sized circles, on both the inside and outside of the top and bottom teeth as well as brushing the chewing surface in a front to backwards motion.
Ideally we should spend at least two minutes brushing our teeth both in the morning after breakfast and at night before going to bed.
Tip Three: Use an Antibacterial Mouthwash
Bad breath causing bacteria do not just grow on the teeth and gums. They also grow on the cheeks and in the microscopic groves in the tongue. In fact, the presence of a white film on the back of the tongue is one of the tell tale signs of a bad breath problem therefore effective ways to clean these areas will be essential to a successful cure.
By swishing and gargling and antibacterial mouthwash we can help to kill bacteria living on these areas. We should however avoid alcohol based bacteria as they can cause dehydration in the mouth which would actually help the bacteria to grow. Another alternative is a baking soda based mouth wash as baking soda helps to lower the pH (how acidic the environment is) of the mouth making it a more inhospitable place for bad breath causing bacteria to grow.
Tip Four: Clean your Tongue Correctly
In tip three we already noted how bacteria can thrive on the tongue if allowed to. The reason is this area regularly comes into contact with protein food sources the bacteria can use to feed on, grow and excrete their foul smelling waste.
In addition to using antibacterial mouth wash, tongue scrapers can help clean this area more thoroughly and can be used once a day to help remove bacteria from the tongue.
Tip Five: Avoid Foods with Volatile Oils
Most of us have had or encountered someone that has just eaten onions or garlic and can pick up the strong the stench on the breath. You may have even eaten these foods yourself and wondered why, after a through brushing and rinsing of your mouth with minty toothpaste and mouthwash you can still smell the wreak of garlic on your breath?
The reason is that these foods contain what are known as volatile oils. Volatile doesn’t mean that they are dangerous or are flammable; rather it means they readily evaporate at room temperature. Once these foods are eaten and digested the oils are absorbed into the bloodstream and carried to all parts of the body including the lungs where they diffuse into the air and are subsequently noticed again as we breath out.
The smell will not go away until the food has been fully digested and expelled from the body explaining why foods like these can still be smelt on the breath a number of days after being eaten.
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How to Find a Bad Breath Remedy That Works
When it comes to a bad breath remedy most of us want something that is going to work and work quickly! Considering the social stigma attached to having bad breath it is really no surprise that when we find our breath less than fresh we want to do something about it and with an embarrassing problem such as bad breath we want a solution all that much faster.
Things like chewing gum, mints and even foods like celery can all help to mask bad breath but are really nothing more than a short term solution masking the underlying problem for a short period of time. A real remedy for bad breath needs to be something that will work as fast as possible but will also treat the underlying cause of bad breath and remove it permanently rather than just masking the problem for it to return once your gum loses it’s flavor or you swallow that mint!
Therefore it makes sense that we address the underlying problem that accounts for nine out of ten cases of bad breath and that is poor oral hygiene. Poor oral hygiene allows the bacteria that live in the mouth to grow and multiply. These bacteria, live all living organisms, consume foods and produce waste. It is the waste products that these bacteria produce that creates the foul stench of bad breath.
The bacteria live on the teeth, between the teeth, on the gum line, on the cheeks and even the tongue. They eat protein so things like dead skin cells, blood cells, protein in mucus and even molecules of food that get trapped on and between the teeth. The most effective long term remedy for bad breath is to therefore limit the opportunity for these bacteria in the mouth to grow by properly flossing, brushing and cleaning the mouth on a daily basis.
Flossing is something that is often neglected but is vitality important not just in the fight against bad breath but in protecting teeth from decay and gum disease. When we eat foods small molecules become lodged in the small gaps between the teeth, often a tooth brush can not reach these molecules and odor producing bacteria will quickly capitalize on this abundant food source. By flossing we remove these molecules of food and limit the opportunity for bacteria to grow between our teeth.
Below is a video of how you can properly floss your teeth to ensure that bad breath causing bacteria are not given the opportunity to grow!
Brushing our teeth is something we pretty much all do but few of us actually take the time to do it properly. Often it’s just a quick 30 second burst in the morning and maybe once again before bed time. The truth is we should be spending at least 2 minutes to brush our teeth both in the morning and at night. To brush the teeth properly we should clean the gum line (the side of the teeth) in a small circular motion both on the inside and on the outside whilst cleaning the chewing surface with a forward and backwards motion.
Following these simple, yet often neglected tips is the most basic bad breath remedy available. The good nes is that you likely already have all the tools you need to implement this strategy today, so whats stopping you?
Basic Bad Breath Information We All Need to Know
What is Bad Breath
Bad breath is the presence of a persistent offending smell that comes from the mouth. It likely that you will have encountered many people suffering the condition through the course of your life yet it’s not something you may have talked about with many people at great length as social politeness requires us to try to be polite as possible and ignore the problem.
It is not socially acceptable to simply say to someone with bad breath ‘Uggh your breath stinks!’ the person you are talking to would be embarrassed and hurt and others would consider you very rude for making such a statement. Instead the polite thing to do is simply ignore it. However you will likely be reluctant to speak to that person again in such close quarters and may even avoid them in future.
It therefore makes sense that if you try and avoid those with bad breath others would do the same to you. It would also seem logical then that if you fear you may have bad breath you would want to avoid any embarrassment or have people talking about you behind your back.
It also makes it difficult to tell if we do in fact suffer from bad breath. Often we can not notice the smell of our breath even when it is painfully obvious to others but if they do not tell us about it how are we to know?
You may be able to pick up subtle signs such as people moving back when you speak or offering you mints or chewing gum but the best thing to do if you fear you have bad breath is ask a close friend or relative or speak to your dentist.
How Common Is Bad Breath
Even though it can feel like we are the only person in the world enduring this problem the truth is we are not alone. Bad breath is a very common problem that is estimated to affect 35-45% of people in the world to some degree. It’s no wonder then also that over $10 billion is spent each year in the United States on oral hygiene products such as mouthwashes and toothpastes that combat chronic breath.
And if indeed we do have breath, we do not like to have to endure the smelly breath of others so we can not expect others to enjoy it if we have it and so it is imperative that we find a way to address and alleviate the problem as quickly as possible.
What Causes Bad Breath
There are many factors that can contribute to bad breath however the smell is often related to the waste produced by bacteria living in the mouth. Bacteria living in the mouth can feed on dead skin cells and the protein compounds found in saliva. If we fail to properly clean our teeth left over molecules of food are an ideal opportunity on which the bacteria can feed and multiply.
As bacteria eat the protein in the mouth they excrete waste that can contain sulpher compounds. Sulpher compounds are what give rotten eggs their foul stench. Dentists refer to these compounds as “volatile sulfer compounds” or VSC’s for short. The word volatile is simply describing the fact that these compounds easily evaporate even at room temperature causing the smell to quickly emanate from the moth and diffuse into the air around.
Therefore poor oral hygiene in which the teeth are not cleaned of excess food after meals or plaque are ideal feeding grounds for bacteria and the subsequent development of bad breath.
Three Tips on How to Get Rid of Bad Breath
In order to combat bad breath we need to fight it’s cause and that is most often excess bacteria in the mouth. What we need to do is therefore ensure that our mouths do not become an ideal habitat for breeding bacteria by cleaning out our mouths properly after eating.
1) Floss Properly
Flossing is a good way to help prevent bacteria as it helps to remove the food particles that get trapped in the small gaps between the teeth that would otherwise be an optimal food source for bacteria. It is important to floss before brushing that way you remove food particles first and then floss them away.
2) Brush Your Teeth Properly
The next step is to properly brush your teeth in the morning after breakfast and at night before going to bed. The purpose of brushing our teeth is to remove any plague build up. Plaque is a thin layer that builds up on the teeth and is something that can help the anaerobic bacteria of the mouth to grow and subsequently lead to bad breath therefore we should brush for a full two to get every tooth.
Start at with the back and do small, tooth sized circles along the gum line of both the inside and the outside of the teeth to remove any plaque and bad breath causing bacteria. The next step is to clean the chewing surface by brushing with a back and forwards motion.
3) Brush Your Tongue and Cheeks
One area of the mouth where lots of bad breath causing bacteria can grow is at the back of the tongue. It is therefore imperative that we thoroughly clean this area if we want to get rid of any embarrassing odors. This area can easily be cleaned by using a tongue scraper or simply your toothbrush and once a day cleaning the tongue from back to front after flossing and brushing. You can add some non-alcoholic mouthwash to the brush or scraper also but be sure to thoroughly clean your tooth brush afterward.
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Bad Breath Home Remedies You Already Have and Don’t Even Know It
Many home remedies for bad breath have developed over the years as different generations sought to alleviate this problem before the introduction of the vast amount of oral care products we have available to us today. Some of these home remedies are incredibly effective and have in fact been the source of inspiration for many of the oral care product we have just mentioned.
The best course of treatment however will always depend on the root cause of the bad breath problem and while there can be many factors that cause bad breath such as throat infections, tooth decay or more serious diseases like liver disease, the primary cause of bad breath for most people is the presence of excess bacteria in the mouth excreting foul smelling sulphuric waste products.
We now understand that the best way to treat bad breath is to limit the amount of these bacteria by making it difficult for them to thrive within the mouth by flossing and brushing to remove food particles and using anti-bacterial mouth wash to kill the bacteria living on the cheeks, gums and between the teeth.
Before this was identified people identified that certain strong smelling foods would leave an after taste and smell on the breath. People recognized that fresh smelling herbs and plants could help mask the smell with a fresher aroma and mint and parsley leaves used to be served as a side for chewing after a meal. There are now vast arrays of products that have utilized this unique property of mint to freshen the breath as we have mint sweets, mint tooth paste, mint chewing gum and mint mouth wash! In fact mint is pretty much synonymous with oral hygiene!
Two other foods that may help remove strong food odors after a meal are sunflower seeds and clove. Some people chew on sunflower seeds or clove after a meal with a glass of water in a hope to absorb the smell of any pungent odors in the food they have just eaten.
There are also some liquid remedies people use that are worth a look at. Some people use the juice of a freshly squeezed lemon and gargle it throughout the day. While this may have a strong, fresh smell that could mask bad breath, lemon juice is acidic and that could actually promote the growth of bacteria in the mouth so is not a home remedy I would recommend.
Green tea is another drink that some believe may help fight bad breath although in all my research I have yet to find someone that can give a good reason why. Some believe that copper traces in tea may help scrape the tongue clean however tea contains caffeine which is a diuretic. This means it will promote dehydration which can lead to dry mouth, a common contributor to bad breath. Therefore until I can find stronger evidence for the benefit of green tea in the fight against bad breath it is not a home remedy I would recommend.
A simple home remedy that may be more effective however is the use of baking soda to clean the teeth and gums. Among its many interesting uses baking soda can be an effective agent for not only whitening teeth but helping to remedy bad breath. The bad breath causing bacteria of the mouth thrive in acidic environments, baking soda helps to reduce the acidity of the mouth making it much more difficult for the bacteria to live and breed and so baking soda has been used as an ingredient in many oral hygiene products.
Ultimately good oral hygiene products of today have been inspired by the bad breath remedies of the past and we should ensure we floss, brush and rinse with mouthwash daily in order to rid our mouths of bacteria and ultimately the bad breath they cause.
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Simple Yet Effective Bad Breath Cures Anyone Can Use
Bad breath cures have been saught out by people all over the world for hundreds of years in an attempt to get rid of this problem. Its no surprise that even today people are still doing the same due to the strong social stigma that surrounds bad breath. But what is it that really works and how can we be sure we can get rid of the invisible repellant shield coming from our mouth? This article aims to shed some light on exactly that so that you can find the cures for bad breath that are right for you.
Know the Cause to Find the Cure
Well, if you didn’t already know the primary cause of bad breath for most people is excessive growth of bacteria in the mouth which then consume protein and excrete sulpher compounds as waste material. It is the sulpher compounds that cause the repugnant smell because these compounds are able to easily evaporate at room temperature they quickly diffuse into the air around us as we breath.
Limit the Bacteria
It makes sense then, that a good way to cure bad breath would be to limit the ability of these bacteria to grow and excrete these waste products. These bacteria live on the gum line, the teeth and also the tongue and cheeks. They feed on protein and this protein can come from a wide variety of sources such as molecules of the food we consume that become trapped in the teeth as well as dead skin cells, enzymes in our saliva and even blood and mucus that fall from the back of the throat onto the tongue.
Can Good Oral Hygiene Cure Bad Breath?
We can limit the amount of protein we make available to these bacteria by flossing and brushing our teeth properly. Flossing first helps to remove any small molecules of food that have become lodged in the small gaps between the teeth whilst brushing helps to brush the molecules away and remove plaque build up from the gum line and chewing surface of the teeth.
If we are serious about curing our bad breath brushing and flossing are two fundamental pillars of oral hygiene that we simply can not ignore and although most of us do brush our teeth we very often do not do it for long enough or in the right way. We should brush our teeth at least twice a day, once after breakfast and again before sleeping and for a full two minutes.
One of the places that bad breath causing bacteria thrive is on the back of the tongue. In fact one of the tell tale signs of a bad breath sufferer is a whitish colored film on the back of the tongue.
Cleaning this area properly can really help to cure bad breath and so should be done daily if not twice daily. The area can be cleaned easily enough by using a tooth brush dipped in an antibacterial, non-alcoholic based mouth wash in a backwards to forward motion. Many toothbrushes have a tongue scraper for on the back of the bristled side or separate tongue scrapers can be bought very cheaply in most pharmacies. Whether you use your toothbrush or a tongue scraper, be sure to rinse it thoroughly afterwards.
Home Cures for Bad Breath
Another popular cure for bad breath is to use baking soda as part of your oral health regimen. Baking soda can help fight bad breath by reducing the acidity of the mouth therefore making it a more inhospitable place for bacteria to grow. Using baking soda that can be bought at any grocery store you can create a baking soda paste by adding some water and brushing the teeth with it or make more diluted baking soda solution that can be gargled.
In the video below the presenter is using baking soda to whiten teeth but the method she uses to create the paste is exactly the same as we can use to fight bad breath.
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Bad Breath Causes Explained – The Truth About What Causes Bad Breath
There are probably not many things in life that can make you as insecure as the worry or even paranoia that you’re suffering from bad breath. Obviously we don’t want people to view us a smelly or unhygienic and we know ourselves ho unpleasant it is to talk to other people with bad breath and we do not want to put our friends, family or coworkers through the same thing.
Before we can treat the problem it is important to understand the main causes of bad breath. In about 85-90% of cases of bad breath and the source of the nasty smell we associated with bad breath is due to the bacteria living in the mouth. Bacteria are living organisms that consume food and excrete waste products just as we humans do. The waste products that the bacteria of the mouth produce are called ‘volatile sulpher compounds’ and have a characteristically nasty smell.
There are a variety of volatile sulpher compounds that exist and that are excreted by the bacteria of the mouth. One example is the volatile sulpher compound hydrogen sulfide. Hydrogen sulfide is what gives rotten eggs their characteristically nasty odor.
The compounds are called volatile due to the fact that they readily evaporate at room temperature and quickly spread to the surrounding air via diffusion.
Below we are going to examine a number of factors which may promote the growth of these anaerobic bacteria and therefore contribute to bad breath as well as look at some other factors that may play a role. Some of the more common, yet less serious causes of bad breath include:
- Having a dry mouth
- Eating certain types of foods
- Inadequate oral hygiene
- Sinus and oral infections
- Tooth decay
Here we will look at some of these main causes of bad breath in more detail:
Bad Breath Cause: Dry Mouth
Something as simple as having a dry mouth can help to cause bad breath. The saliva in the mouth helps moisten and cleanse the mouth of dead skin cells that would otherwise gather on the cheeks, tongue and gums. These dead cells are an excellent source of protein for the anaerobic bacteria of the mouth to feed on and subsequently excrete their odor causing sulpher compounds.
Many people suffer from bad breath in the morning and having a dry mouth is the reason as obviously we do not drink water while we are sleeping and we start to become slightly dehydrated. It is important then to drink plenty of water throughout the day and in the morning to replenish the water lost during sleep.
This is also the reason you can wake up with an extremely dry mouth after a nights heavy drinking. Alcohol is a diuretic that causes dehydration and therefore makes your mouth even drier than normal.
Bad Breath Cause: Eating Certain Foods
Some foods are associated with having bad breath and there can be a number of ways foods may cause short or long term bad breath. Strong smelling foods like tuna fish can linger on the breath hours after eating as the food particles in the mouth get trapped on and between the teeth. Other foods contain volatile oils which, after digestion, are absorbed by the bloodstream and carried to the lungs where they are noticed as we breathe until the oils have been eliminated from the bloodstream. Two examples of this are onions and garlic which can cause bad breath for up to three days after eating them!
Bad Breath Cause: Improper Oral Hygiene
Failing to floss properly and brush your teeth, gums and tongue correctly will make your mouth the ideal breeding ground for the anaerobic bacteria that cause bad breath. If we fail to floss food particles and plaque remain in the small spaces between teeth and in the gum line. The bacteria can then feed on the food particles as well as have an ideal place to grow beneath the layer of plaque that forms.
Similarly, failing to brush the teeth will not only leave food particles for the bacteria to eat but beneath the plaque is an area starved of oxygen which provides the ideal conditions for the bacteria to live and excrete their foul smelling waste products.
Failing to clean the tongue properly is one of the major causes of bad breath. The back of the tongue provides excellent conditions for the growth of bacteria and therefore it needs to be cleaned regularly.
Bad Breath Cause: Sinus and Oral Infections
Discharge from the sinus at the back of the throat can cause bad breath as the protein particles in the mucus, blood and pus can be used as a source of fuel for the bacteria. Similarly throat infections, bronchitis and respiratory infections may cause bad breath in the same way.
Bad Breath Cause: Tooth Decay
If the enamel that protects are teeth is compromised the bacteria have access to the soft protein rich tissue below and are able to rapidly multiply excreting a great deal of the foul smelling sulphuric compounds.
More Serious Causes
There are times when bad breath can be an indicator of a more serious underlying medical condition such as blood disorders, cancer, diabetes, liver disorders or lung disease.
Due to the fact that there are a great variety of factors that can cause bad breath it is always advisable to speak to a dental health professional if you believe you may have bad breath as they can identify the most suitable course of treatment for you.
For a more detailed examination of the causes of bad breath and what you can do to get rid of it simply enter your name and email address to the form on the right and claim your free 10 part mini course that reveals the secrets to bad breath.
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