Some foods that are notorious for causing halitosis are garlic, onions, curry, fish and cheese.  Therefore, you’re going to want to freshen your mouth after eating these.  You also need to freshen your mouth once every 30-60 minutes until the breath offending-food is out of your bloodstream- sometimes this takes up to 24 hours!  It isn’t a good idea to brush your teeth that often, so trying some foods that banish halitosis may be just what the dentist ordered.

Foods that can fix bad breath:

1) Lemons- These are easy to find in restaurants, bars, etc.  Lemon-flavored candies can work as well as normal lemons, and are more easily portable.

2) Green garnishes (i.e. parsley, basil, and rosemary) - A garnish doesn’t always just serve as a decoration.  The meals that have garnish often have a lot of onions and garlic–thus needing a breath freshener afterward.  If you chew on a parsley’s sprigs, it releases breath-freshening oils. 

3)  Crisp and fresh foods like apples, firm pears, carrots, jicama are all high in fiber, plus chewing bumps up the productive of saliva (functions like a scrubbing rinse inside the oral cavity). 

4) Crunchy spices like anise, coriander, cardamom, and fennel seeds are available in many grocery stores.  Try getting these spices, mixing equal parts together in a covered bowl, and keep them around for mealtime.  If you chew on a few seeds here and there, enough oil should be released to freshen your breath after eating.  They taste good, as well.

5)  Mint sprigs/cinnamon sticks (cinnamon/mint gum, etc.)- These especially help against onion and garlic.  Cinnamon, with its essential oils, also helps kill various types of oral bacteria.  Gum without sugar is less likely to cause cavities and fuel the bad breath-causing bacteria. 

6) Berries/yogurt- Eat these foods to prevent bad breath…if you eat half of one cup of plain and sugarless yogurt twice a day, this can lower the levels of hydrogen sulfide in your mouth.  The same goes with berries, melons, oranges, and other foods high in Vitamin C- they help kill smelly bacteria in the oral cavity.  Try having a cup of fruit with yogurt twice a day, and this should help get rid of the bad breath.

Last but not least, practice good oral care, and this will decrease your “Real Age” as much as 6.4 years!

Bookmark It

Does your dog have bad breath? Well, maybe you are not employing the use of proper oral hygiene. After all, us humans need to maintain a level of oral care so that we don’t have halitosis. Also, just like people, dogs and cats can get gum disease–and if a dog or cat’s gums are infected and abscessed, bacteria can enter the bloodstream, causing liver, kidney, and even heart malfunctions. So, what’s a good way to brush your best friend’s teeth?

Here are some tips for brushing your pet’s teeth:

#1 Start off slowly. Make sure to use a toothpaste formula that is specifically made for animals, since human toothpaste can give stomach upsets to animals. Have your pet lick the paste off of your finger, and you might need to try a few different flavors to find one that your pet likes.

#2 Once you can get toothpaste into the animal’s mouth, use a slight amount on your finger and run it across the dog or cat’s teeth. This might even take several days to get your pet to do this agreeably. Once your pet is fine with you doing this to its teeth, use a toothbrush (made for pets) and make small circles on the gum line. Don’t brush too hard!

#3 Be sure to cheer on your pet and express approval during this process. Afterward, you could also give your pet a treat, playtime, a walk, etc., so it will think of brushing as a positive moment.

#4 In order to practice proper oral hygiene with your pet, try to brush your pet’s teeth every day.

Here are some warning signs to look for in your pet’s mouth:

1. Yellow or brown tartar, especially where the teeth and gums meet
2. Red, swollen, bleeding, inflamed, tender, and/or receding gums
3. Chronic halitosis
4. Teeth that are chipped/broken
5. Tooth resorption (especially common in cats)- a very painful condition in which the tooth dissolves
6. A change in the animal’s diet, chewing habits and appetite can signify depression (along with pawing at the face/mouth).

Also, don’t forget to try this oral rinse for dogs and cats that helps prevent plaque and tartar buildup.  Be sure to practice good oral hygiene with your pet, so that the both of you can have great smiles!

Bookmark It

As you get older, you’ll realize how important proper oral hygiene is.  There are ways you can keep tabs on your oral health every month or so.  Check your mouth for white and red patches, tongue flakiness, pigmented lesions, and sores with uneven borders.  Oral cancer is rare with non-smokers, but it’s still possible to get it.  In order to check yourself for it, look at your outer and inner lips, and all sides of the tongue.  Look on the outside and inside if you cheers, and if there’s ever abnormalities that last longer than 14 days, ask a dental expert about it. 

Here are some things that you can pay attention to in order to protect your oral health:

Canker sores: these tend to pop up when people are stressed.  You can try a topical pain reliever directly on the spot.  Dentists can also use a soft-tissue laser to get rid of them.

Fix bad breath: If you’re not sure that you have bad breath at any given moment, use a cotton ball or gauze pad on the back of your tongue and smell it.  Whenever you brush your teeth, make sure to also get the back of your tongue, since this is where bacteria really like to proliferate.  Alcohol is found in most mouthwashes, but the problem with that is that alcohol helps dehydrate — thus drying the gums and reducing saliva flow.  After this, the bacteria multiples and causes the halitosis to worsen.  Keep in mind that TheraBreath sells an alcohol-free mouthwash!

Back of the mouth: Make sure to get this area when brushing, especially along the gum lines.  If you have a hard time accessing that area when brushing, slighty open the mouth.

Floss, floss, floss!  This is especially needed to prevent tartar buildup.  Toothbrushes can only get so far between the teeth–only 1 millimeter under the gums.  The problem is that gum pockers are usually 3-4 millimeters, which is deeper.  The bacteria feeds off the particles that get caught in these pockets, and if you don’t take care of the issue, you’ll have tooth decay and in extreme cases, jawbone loss.  Keep in mind that 80% of adults allegedly have a form of gum disease!

By practicing good oral hygiene, you’ll help keep your smile white and clean!

Bookmark It

Bad Breath, post nasal drip, and tonsil stones are all common problems that people have.  What else do they have in common?  Grapefruit seed extract is an extremely versatile compound that can help cure/prevent these issues. 

 Overall, grapefruit seed extract is great for prevention purposes.  It helps prevent caries/tooth decay, gingivitis/gum disorders, plaque, sore throats and flu viruses.  It also helps with allergies, bladder infections, bacterial cystitis, incontinence, chronic urethritis, candida/fungal/yeast infections, chronic fatigue syndrome, hypotension, chronic inflammation, coughs, laryngitis, diarrhea, earaches, flatulence, gastritis, gastric/duodenal ulcers (H. pylori), parasites, phlegm/mucus, the respiratory system, sinusitis/nasal issues, tonsillitis, thrush, toxic shock syndrome, virulent staph infection, and ulcerative stomatitis. 

Tonsil stones is a condition that many people have– it is not as uncommon as you might think.  For more information on tonsil stones, its causes and cures, click here.  Alcohol and dairy products can also contribute to the formation of tonsil stones.  All of the aforementioned dental health issues can cause bad breath. The reason as to why grapefruit seed extract works to help these issues is because it kills the bacteria causing plaque, bad breath, and so on.  This extract is antifungal, antibacterial, and antiviral.

Grapefruit seed extract is handy because it is a natural cure with a low toxicity, but it is not recommended to take it longer than a short period of time.  Also, this extract may defeat the bacteria/yeast causing a bad breath smell, but the root of the bad breath problem may still exist.  People should also monitor their intake of red meat, processed foods, and other foods that encourage bad breath.  It will also be harder to see improvement if you are eating sugar and carbohydrates, since these can fuel the bad breath-causing bacteria. 

Grapefruit seed extract has been diluted in mouthwash solutions, in order to promote healthy gums and fresh breath. For information on how to use this extract to prevent or cure bad breath, tonsil stones, post nasal drip, etc., consult a professional who works with natural cures to see what best suits you.

What are some other uses that you probably didn’t know?  Grapefruit seed extract can be useful to prevent infection and relieve pain during tooth extraction, and it can be used to help clean your toothbrush.

Bookmark It

According to Japanese research, sugarless yogurt can serve as another remedy for bad breath, tooth decay, and gum disease.  Yogurt had allegedly reduced the levels of hydrogen suphide (a primary cause of halitosis) in 80% of participants in the study conducted by the International Association for Dental Research.  The plaque and gum disease levels were also noticeably lower among those who ate the yogurt. The main bacteria that help reduce bad breath are Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus.

The study group of volunteers ate 90 grams of yogurt every day for six weeks, while maintaining a strict diet, medication intake, and oral hygiene routine. 

People should consider having sugar-free yogurt as a healthy snack, since sugary snacks rank high in causing tooth decay.  According to statistics, 1/4 people have chronic bad breath, and 19/20 have gum disease sometime in their lives!  By cutting down on the consumption of sugary snacks and chocolate and adopting a good oral hygiene routine, one can start adopting better oral health.

Source: BBC News

Bookmark It

There are many things that people may not realize regarding oral care and its relationship to overall health.  Dental health is a very important thing and should not be neglected.  Here are certain things that you may not have known about dental care and dentists:

Pay More Attention

• Just because your mouth may not hurt, does not mean it is healthy. 
• Your oral health can affect the rest of your body
• People with HEALTHY gums should go to the dentist twice a year.  Most people do not.  If your gums are NOT healthy, you should go even more. 
• People tend to brush their front teeth more, and many people have periodontal disease in their back teeth because of this
• People tend to spend around 2-3 minutes total brushing per day, even though proper oral care requires at least ten minutes of brushing and flossing each day.  Kids tend to spend even less time than adults. 

Bad Breath

• Chewing gum or mints is not going to cover up the smell from smoking cigarettes.  This is because the smell is deeply ingrained in the mouth and gum tissues.
• Most dentists won’t tell you if you have halitosis unless you ask.
• People need to floss since brushing does not go deep into the gums.  If a person brushes and flosses properly, gets regular cleanings, and STILL has bad breath, then he or she should check into diet and health complications.

Children’s Teeth

• Dentists may secretly blame parents when their kids’ teeth go bad.
• Cavity-causing bacteria CAN be spread from person-to-person via saliva.  This includes parents to children– if a parent tastes a baby’s food, and puts the same spoon back into the baby’s mouth, the baby is at risk.
• Children with dental problems, like toothaches, tend to have more problems in school.
• There’s a significant risk of infection with any kind of mouth piercing if it is not performed in a sterile environment.  Also, tongue piercings tend to chip the front teeth.

Patient Concerns

• Having metal fillings removed can release more mercury than leaving them in.  Metal fillings are much more durable than tooth-colored fillings.
• People are exposed to more radiation standing outside for an hour than they are when they have dental X-rays taken.
• People are getting teeth pulled that don’t need to be just because they can’t afford to fix them.
• Very few insurance companies cover dental implants, even though they’re better than dentures
• Teeth that are not aligned correctly can cause migraines. 
• Bleeding gums is one of the first signs of diabetes. 
• Did you know that teeth get whiter when they dry out?  If you go to the dentist to get your teeth whitened, and your mouth is left open for an hour, the teeth could be two shades whiter from dehydration alone. 
• Cosmetic dentistry only works in a healthy mouth.  Always treat your gum disease first.
• When you go to the dentist, check to see if the magazines in the waiting area are up-to-date…this shows if they pay attention to detail.

Here is an interesting quote by dentist Damian Dachowski: “When someone meets you for the first time, the first thing they notice is eyes. Second is teeth, and third is hair. But people spend way more money on their hair than their teeth.”

Source: Reader’s Digest

Bookmark It

Gingivitis is a general term for different types of infections in the gingiva. Bad breath-causing bacteria cause gingivitis, so it is important to keep the oral cavity clean. By exercising proper oral hygiene, you can clean up any gingivitis that you have and prevent it from occuring.

You should brush at least 2-3 times a day, and it is also important that you use a decent toothpaste. PerioTherapy is excellent for those with periodontal infections. Flossing is very important because it gets rid of the plaque between the teeth. Generally, you should floss twice a day (at least once for sure) before you brush your teeth. Try using oral rinse every day (preferably twice at least), since this can reach areas that your dental floss and toothbrush do not reach. A tongue scraper will eradicate bacteria from the tongue. Also, after you use a tongue scraper and toothbrush, make sure to rinse them with hot water.

If left untreated, gingivitis can be really severe and turn into gum disease. Bleeding, swollen, and painful gums all can occur, as well as tooth loss that could allegedly lead to heart disease. If you are dedicated to curing your gingivitis and doing the right procedure, you can get rid of this oral health problem and potentially the bad breath that goes along with it. It not only depends on your dentist, but it also depends on your habits and the oral care products you use.

Bookmark It

Happy new year everyone!  Since we all want a fresh start with the new year, why not also start with fresh breath? In order to combat bad breath, we need to know what causes it in the first place. Anaerobic bacteria exists in the biofilm that is formed on the tongue, and these bacteria break down proteins in food, resulting in the production of offensive smells due to gases like hydrogen sulphide and skatol.

Here are some tips to help avoid halitosis this new year:

1) Proper oral hygiene. One should gargle with lukewarm water after eating, even if it’s just a snack. Brushing should be done 2-3 times a day, and you should also use floss and a tongue scraper. Add TheraBreath to your daily regimen.
2) Proper brushing techniques. Avoid brushing too vigorously, as this does damage to the gums. Excessive brushing can damage tooth enamel. Try to brush the upper teeth in a downward direction, and the lower teeth in a upward direction.
3) Tooth picks
4) Food habits. Some foods that people eat are certainly smellier than others. Sometimes they say “an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but a raw onion a day keeps everybody away.” Also, try to maintain regularity in food timing.
5) Water intake. Keep hydrated to maintain a stable level of saliva.
6) Natural fresheners. Try spices like clove, cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, and cumin seed. Citrus fruits can help banish bad breath.

And if these bad breath cures do not work, try the following:
1) Remove the underlying cause. Get checked out for general and systemic diseases like gastric disorders, diabetes, fevers, liver diseases, etc. If you have an infection, antibiotics, antifungal and antiviral medicines can help. You may even want to try saliva-producing tablets.
2) Get regular dental checkups and cleanings. If you have caries, make sure they get filled.
3) Tonsillectomies can help if you have recurrent tonsilitis.
4) Homeopathy. In this case, medicines are selected based on the physical, mental, social, and emotional characteristics of a person.
5) Psychological counseling.  Sometimes chronic halitosis sufferers are very depressed and have the tendency to avoid the public. 

Good luck and happy 2010!

Bookmark It

On Dec. 18, 2009 at 8:50 AM PST, Dr. Katz is going to be LIVE on the TV show ’Fox and Friends’ to talk about bad foods (the ones most likely to cause halitosis) during the Holidays. On Dec. 18 at 9 AM PST, Dr. Katz will also be on their online program to talk about good foods (foods less likely to cause bad breath) for the holidays.  Check it out on: http://foxnews.com.

Bookmark It

Sometimes brushing your teeth after eating onions or garlic won’t stop you from having bad breath. Garlic can stay in your lungs for 1-2 days after you consume it! Therefore, making your breath fresh after eating onions and garlic is more complex than brushing your teeth and gargling. Here are some pointers:

1. Try drinking some green or mint tea after consuming garlic/onions.
2. Eat a lemon/drink lemonade.
3. Chew on parsley, mint leaves, or other strong-tasting fresh herbs
4. Try eating mixed veggies crushed into a mashed potato like mushrooms, carrots, and other types.
5. Chew mint/spearmint flavored gum
6. Drink a small amount of alcohol because it can kill the bacteria that feeds on leftover food in the oral cavity. 
7. Eat a hard cheese like cheddar or swiss (not American) to cover up the smell
8. You can try to use a smaller amount of onion or garlic while cooking
9. Use a spoon to clean off your tongue if you don’t have access to a tongue scraper
10. Don’t forget to brush your teeth and rinse out your mouth, of course.

Bookmark It