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What causes bad breath and how to prevent it?

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Bad breath, also known as halitosis or malodor, can be embarrassing at best and crippling at worst. It can even ruin relationships. While most of us have bad breath at certain times, like when we get up in the mornings. Persistent bad breath is caused by a build-up of bacteria in your mouth throughout the day, leading to inflammation. This releases bad odors or gases that smell like sulfur or rotten eggs, or worse! In this article, we’ll talk about what causes bad breath and how to prevent it…

Causes of Bad Breath

While there are no statistics on what percentage of the population has bad breath, a considerable portion of the population has or will have bad breath at some time in their lives. The best way to find out if you have bad breath is too. Ask your friends or family members for feedback. This will help make you aware of the problem so you can figure out how best to address the problem.

Bad breath can occur due to several reasons. Studies show that 80% of bad breath comes from an oral source, that is, from something within your mouth and teeth. For instance, cavities or gum disease can lead to bad breath, as well as trapped food particles, cracked fillings, and unclean dentures.

Other medical reasons for bad breath include diabetes, liver disease, chronic bronchitis, and respiratory tract infections. Other causes also include acid reflux, postnasal drip, and chronic dry mouth.

How to prevent bad breath

There are several ways you can prevent bad breath. If you have medical reasons for your bad breath you should promptly treat those. However, if your bad breath is due to oral causes, here are a few things you can do…

1)   Visit your dentist regularly: Keep your scheduled dental appointment once in six months, or at least, once a year. Good oral hygiene is key to fighting bad breath. Dentists recommend that you brush and floss at least twice daily to reduce the odor-causing bacteria in your mouth. Dentists may also recommend using an electric toothbrush since most electric toothbrushes have timers, which helps ensure that you brush your teeth for the right length of time. You can also use certain mouthwashes and mouth rinses that help fight cavities, remove plaque, and prevent bad breath. Additionally, you should use an antibacterial mouth rinse that kills bacteria, rather than simply using a cosmetic mouthwash that just focuses on freshening your breath.

2)   Watch what you eat: What you eat affects your breath. This is because as your food is digested, it is absorbed into your bloodstream and is then expelled by your lungs when you breathe. You should concentrate on eating a healthy diet and balanced meals. Extreme fasting or very low-carb diets can trigger you bad breath as well. Raw carrots, celery, and apple slices are good to have, while odor-causing garlic and onions should be eaten in modest quantities.

3)   Drink a lot of water: Drinking a lot of water can clean the debris in your mouth or between your teeth. Drinking a lot of milk can also reduce bad breath. You should, however, avoid sugary and carbonated drinks.

4)   Don’t drink too much coffee: While coffee can be a great pick-me-up, its smell can be difficult to get out of your mouth. Instead of coffee, consider drinking herbal or green teas. However, the tannin in tea is also known to stain teeth, so its best to drink both coffee and tea in moderation.

5)   Don’t smoke or use other tobacco products: Cigarettes, cigars, pipes, and snuff can cause terrible bad breath. And this lasts for hours, sometimes even continually. In some people, it is worse than in others.

6)   Cut back on alcohol Intake: Alcohol can lead to a dry mouth, also called xerostomia. This is one of the causes of bad breath. Too much wine, beer, and hard liquor can cause bad breath for eight to ten hours after you finish drinking.

7)   Chew sugarless gum: Chewing sugarless gum about 20 minutes after a meal can increase the flow of saliva in your mouth, thereby helping to clean debris, bacteria, and plaque, all of which cause bad breath. Not only is this cleansing, but it can also fight cavities.

8)   Use breath mints carefully: Sugar-free mints are great for a quick fix, but they mask bad breath and do nothing to remove harmful bacteria. In fact, if you eat breath mints regularly, the sugar in the mints can remain in your mouth and teeth, and worsen your bad breath.

These are some of the causes of bad breath and ways treat it. At Bellevue Dental Health, we can advise patients on how to prevent bad breath and also how to treat it effectively. With regular dental visits, and good oral care you can nip the problem of bad breath in the bud and prevent it from getting out of hand.

The team at Bellevue Dental Health takes the time to understand your oral health concerns and will treat you holistically with personalized care. So, the next time you think you need a professional dental cleaning or treatment, visit Dr. Libbi Finnessy at Bellevue Dental Health for the best and most caring treatment for your teeth.

For more information about preventing and treating bad breath, contact Dr. Libbi Finnessy of Bellevue Dental Health at 425-641-3311 or at contact@bellevuedentalhealth.com or visit our website at www.bellevuedentalhealth.com.

smoking

How Smoking Effects Your Teeth

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We’ve all heard about the detrimental effects of smoking on your health. However, did you know that smoking also adversely affects your oral health? Well, it’s true! Smoking causes many oral health problems and the longer you smoke the more severe these problems become.

With there being about 36 million smokers in the United States, (according to the Centers for Disease Control), this amounts to about 15% of the population. That’s a huge number of people risking their oral health by smoking. So, how exactly does smoking affect your teeth? That’s what we’ll talk about in this article…

  • Smoking puts you at greater risk for oral cancer: Smoking or chewing tobacco can cause cancers of your mouth, tongue, lips, gums, and throat. According to the Oral Cancer Foundation, about 50,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with oral cancer every year. An estimated 80% of them are smokers. If you are a smoker as well as a heavy drinker, your risk for oral cancer substantially increases. I screen all of my patients at their dental appointments for oral cancer. It often begins as a white or red patch in the mouth and is not symptomatic. It later can be accompanied by difficulty chewing or swallowing, numbness in the jaw, and pain in the ear. If you have these symptoms for more than two weeks, visit your dentist, as the earlier oral cancer is detected, the more effective will its treatment be.
  • Smoking puts you at greater risk for gum disease: Smoking adversely affects your gums in two ways. If you smoke you are more likely to produce more bacterial plaque in your mouth, which puts your gums under steady attack. Second, smokers have lower oxygen levels in their blood, therefore delaying healing. This means that when your gums become infected, your body is less likely to be able to deal with it. Gum disease progresses at a very rapid rate in people who smoke. Losing teeth is a very real consequence in people who are heavy smokers.
  • Smoking puts you at greater risk for cavities: Due to the plaque and gum problems caused by smoking, smokers are at higher risk for tooth decay. If you smoke, you’re putting your mouth at risk for cavities three times more than non-smokers.
  • Smoking puts you at greater risk for bad breath: Smokers have a greater incidence of halitosis or bad breath. This is because about 4000 chemicals pass through your oral cavity every time you smoke. Many of these end up collecting on the surfaces inside your mouth. Smoking also contributes to bad breath by drying out your mouth. This can trigger gum infection and can irritate your sinuses, resulting in post-nasal drip.
  • Smoking puts you at greater risk for stained teeth: Smokers typically have stained teeth, with unattractive yellow stains that tar and nicotine leave on your teeth. Over time, this discoloration can leak into tiny cracks in your tooth enamel, leading to permanent discoloration and staining.
  • Smoking puts you at greater risk for delayed healing: Smoking results in the increased possibility of tooth extraction and oral surgery. However, at the same time, it results in delayed healing and slows your body’s ability to recover from these procedures. It also lowers the rate of successful dental implant procedures. The more you smoke, the more vulnerable you are to developing further complications.
  • Smoking puts you at greater risk for altered taste and smell: Smoking results in an altered sense of taste and smell. This interferes with your enjoyment of food and is also likely to make you add more salt or sugar to your food to make the taste stronger. Research shows that about one in five smokers have a less precise sense of taste and smell. However, this can be reversed if you stop smoking.

So, now you know how smoking can adversely affect your teeth. At Bellevue Dental Health we can help you manage the effects of smoking on your teeth. We work individually with each patient and take a detailed patient history to determine what treatment options each patient has.

If you are a smoker be sure to have regular dental care and a regular exam. As always, we are here to help at Bellevue Dental Health!

For more information about a dental consultation and different dental procedures,
contact Dr. Libby Finnessy of Bellevue Dental Health at 425-641-3311 or at info@bellevuedentalhealth.com.