The Bad Breath Blog

The science of halitosis is constantly evolving. Things that were once considered the main causes of bad breath have often fallen by the wayside, as research has proven them to have little or no connection to oral odor. Consider this situation: You have two kinds of ulcers – aphthous ulcers (also known as canker sores) and a stomach ulcer. Which one is causing your bad breath?

It’s tempting to immediately choose the stomach ulcer, and for many years, oral health experts did just that. They knew that most halitosis comes from odor-causing bacteria (which is true), so they assumed that bad breath came from the stomach and digestive tract.

Today, though, we know that this simply isn’t true. In fact, a new study published in the Journal of Breath Research confirms as much.

Stomach ulcers hurt (but don’t stink)

Scientists from three different health centers in the Netherlands set out to see whether the bacterium that causes stomach ulcers – a nasty little beast called Heliobacter pylori – can also emit enough volatile sulfur compounds (VSCs) to make breath smell bad.

It can’t.

As the Dutch team noted, “the concentrations of the VSCs in stomach air were in nearly all cases below the thresholds of objectionability of the various VSCs, indicating that halitosis does not originate in the stomach.” Hence, stomach ulcers can’t cause oral odor.

“Halitosis,” the authors added, “nearly always originates within the oral cavity and seldom or never within the stomach.”

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Say you’re curious about what gets people revved up in the bedroom, but you’re too afraid to ask around. (And who wouldn’t be? How do you get that conversation started?) While you’re at it, you also want to know what the biggest turn-offs are. Well, you can relax, because a New Zealand-based company has done the legwork for you. They surveyed more than a thousand Kiwis and found that – for ladies, at least – the number-one sin a partner can commit is skipping out on bad breath remedies.

Poll puts halitosis at the top of most women’s lists

Conducted by an adult products merchant, the survey queried 1,500 New Zealanders about their biggest turn-ons and turn-offs in bed.

Unsurprisingly, women overwhelmingly said that halitosis is the worst boudoir-based offence imaginable.

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Occasionally, the need for an alcohol-free mouthwash may send you searching through popular health blogs in the hopes of finding a product that will clear up your bad breath. Well, search no more, because TheraBreath offers a number of alcohol-free rinses that can neutralize odor and clean the mouth, all without harsh chemicals.

And if you think synthetic chemical are never marketed as halitosis solutions anymore, just look at how often photodynamic therapy for bad breath, or “blue light therapy,” appears in headlines. This treatment, which is totally unnecessary for eliminating oral odor, uses a chemical that can turn your urine and eye whites blue.

What is photodynamic therapy?

Most recently, an article published by the UK’s Daily Mail discussed using such a treatment for halitosis. In a piece that also touched on using “light therapy” for such conditions as epilepsy, cancer, stroke and stomach ulcers, halitosis stands out a bit. And the article uses a photo of a house lamp to illustrate “harnessing the power of light.” Hopefully your skepticism has been aroused.

As it turns out, so-called blue light treatments for halitosis are based on photodynamic therapy (PT), a century-old medical practice that uses photosensitizing chemicals (plus a narrow spectrum of light wavelengths) to kill pathogens or fight disease.

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What would ruin a night faster than a little halitosis emanating from your date? That’s a question that sociologists, dating experts and the generally curious have been asking for a long time now, and it seems like the answer is almost always “nothing.” Bad breath is, hands down, one of the biggest turn-offs around – as confirmed by a recent survey.

Conducted by a manufacturer of electronic cigarettes (which are fodder for a blog post of their own), the poll found that halitosis is one of the few turn-offs that both genders can agree on.

Oral odor, beards and tattoos

A spokesperson for the e-cigarette company noted that, as you might expect, men and women have different primary turn-offs. Guys told surveyors that having extensive tattoos is the biggest way that a woman can torpedo a date, while the ladies shot back that growing a thick, matted beard is the number-one thing that send men home alone.

But both sides agreed on the second most common turnoff, because #2 for men and women alike was bad breath.

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It seems like a new study comes out every month or so touting the miraculous, bad breath-fighting power of some herb, oil, fruit or even candy. It’s hard to take these too seriously, even though many appear in the industry’s leading publication, the Journal of Breath Research. The most recent oddity to grace the pages of that storied journal is a study alleging that two compounds in licorice eliminate halitosis.

While this may technically be correct, in real-world practice it probably won’t amount to much. Here’s why.

The study itself

Researchers from Quebec’s Laval University conducted an investigation to determine whether concentrated Chinese licorice extracts can be used to fight bad breath. Specifically, the team tried to find out whether (a) the extract’s compounds ward off bacterial growth, and (b) if this stuff can also neutralize volatile sulfur compounds (VSCs), the molecules that make your mouth funky.

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