bad breath /
bad breath testing / bad breath cures
Bad breath, also
known as "halitosis",
doesn't have to be an insurmountable problem. Appropriate
cures
for bad breath are usually very simple once the sufferer
understands the fundamental
causes of their breath odors. In most cases a person's
bad
breath is due to anaerobic oral bacteria which have
accumulated
on the person's tongue and also between and around their
teeth.
Our discussion will outline for you some simple
tests you can use to determine if you have bad breath,
explain to you how
and why oral bacteria create bad breath, detail for
you where
these offending bacteria commonly accumulate and how
to effectively minimize them, provide you with explanations
regarding the use of tongue
scrapers, mouthwashes,
and other specialty products, and provide you with some
common
sense tips which can help you to minimize bad breath.
Do you have
bad breath?
How
is your breath, not sure? No doubt at some point each of
us has unwittingly had bad breath (halitosis)
only to subsequently be embarrassed by the reactions of
those around us.
For any individual the exact status of one's breath can
be difficult to ascertain. The reason for this lies in the
fact that the oral cavity, the source of our breath, is
connected to our nose by way of an opening which lies in
the back of our mouth (back in the region of our soft palate).
Since noses tend to filter out and ignore background odors,
it filters out and ignores our own bad breath. This means
it is quite possible for a person to have bad breath, yet
not be aware of it.
Is
there a way a person can test his own breath?
There
are ways to accurately smell your own breath, however you
have to take a slightly indirect route.
Try this technique. Lick your wrist, wait about five seconds
while the saliva dries somewhat, and then smell it. What
do you think? That's the way you smell. Or, more precisely,
that's the way the end of your tongue smells (your tongue's
"anterior" portion). How was it? Did you pass this first
check?
Now
do this experiment, it will check the odor associated with
the back of your tongue (your tongue's "posterior" aspect).
Take a spoon, turn it upside down, and use it to scrape
the very back portion of your tongue. (Don't be surprised
if you find you have an active gag reflex.) Take a look
at the material that has been scrapped off, usually its
a thick whitish material. Now, take a whiff of it. Not so
bad? Pretty nasty? This smell, as opposed to the sampling
from the anterior portion of your tongue, is probably the
way your breath smells to others.
The
fundamental cause of bad breath is...
So
now you know, the fundamental cause of bad breath for most
people is the whitish coating that covers the surface of
the posterior portion of their tongue. More accurately,
bad breath is caused by the bacteria that live in this coating.
(The second most common fundamental cause of bad breath
is bacteria that live and accumulate elsewhere in a person's
mouth.)
The
remainder of the text on this page describes various methods
by which dental researchers attempt to quantify levels of
bad breath. If you're interested in this topic of course
please read on, otherwise you may want to skip on to our
next
page of topic bad breath.
How
academic researchers test for bad breath.
Before
a dental researcher can evaluate various cures for bad breath
they must first have a way to measure its severity, both
initially and after the cure they are studying has been
administered. Some of the different methods researchers
have used to measure bad breath are discussed below.
Organoleptic
judging of bad breath.
Judging
of a person's bad breath by way of organoleptic testing
simply means that the one performing the breath evaluation
has used their sense of smell (their nose) as the means
for making the determination. Historically this method of
breath testing has been a frequent choice among dental researchers.
Noses are readily available, inexpensive to obtain and operate,
and to their credit noses can detect up to 10,000 different
smells.
The problem one encounters with organoleptic testing is
that it does not provide an evaluation of bad breath that
is totally objective. Factors other than breath odors can
and do influence organoleptic evaluations. In fact research
has shown that factors such as hunger, menstrual cycle,
head position, and the degree of attentiveness and expectation
can each influence a judge's interpretation of what they
smell.
As for quantifying the organoleptic measurement itself,
what exactly does constitute a weak, strong, or average
level of bad breath? Will each judge involved in the research
be able to make equivalent comparisons? Complicating things
even more, as we all know when we are repeatedly exposed
to a bad odor our sense of smell acclimatizes to the odor
and therefore our sense of smell loses much of its sensitivity.
Bad breath that seems exceedingly objectionable at the beginning
of testing may seem quite less so as the evaluation continues.
Using
gas chromatography to evaluate bad breath.
Researchers
in a number of scientific fields have long used gas chromatographs
as a means of identifying the gases found in the samples
they are studying. Likewise, gas chromatographs have been
utilized by dentists in bad breath studies and have provided
a means by which a researcher could definitively quantify
the precise levels of specific compounds present in someone's
breath.
While gas chromatography is probably the best way to test
for the compounds associated with bad breath it has not
been widely utilized in studies for several reasons. Gas
chromatographs are relatively expensive and need personnel
with special training to operate them. The equipment is
not portable and a significant amount of time is needed
to make each breath measurement.
Using
Halimeters to judge bad breath.
A
specialized type of sulfide monitor (termed a Halimeter) has
been developed and it provides a means by which a tester can
quantify degrees of bad breath. These machines, first introduced
in 1991, measure the amount of sulfide gasses found in a person's
breath. Some sulfides, such as hydrogen sulfide and methyl
mercaptan (collectively referred to in dental literature as
volatile sulfur compounds or "VSC's"),
are well known as being causative agents for bad breath. A
Halimeter's discovery of a high level of sulfides suggests
a correlating high level of VSC's, although the individual
types of VSC's aren't tested for specifically.
Since Halimeters test for a fewer number of compounds than
gas chromatographs (sulfides only), and in fact test for no
individual compounds at all but instead just sulfides as a
class, Halimeters provide for a less definitive evaluation
of a person's bad breath than gas chromatographs can. Additionally,
compounds such as ethanol (alcohol) and essential oils (both
being compounds commonly found in mouthwashes) interfere with
a Halimeter's ability to make a measurement. The advantages
of using a Halimeter for a study rather than a gas chromatograph
are that a Halimeter requires no special training to use,
is portable, breath measurements can be made quickly, and
the apparatus itself is comparatively inexpensive.
The
BANA test.
Some
of the bacteria that cause periodontal disease (gum disease)
produce waste products that are quite odiferous and as a
result contribute to the presence of bad breath. Some of
these types of bacteria can be tested for by way of a BANA
test.
The bacteria in question have the characteristic of being
able to produce an enzyme that degrades the compound benzoyl-D,
L-arginine-naphthylamide (abbreviated BANA). When a sample
containing these bacteria is placed with the BANA compound
they break it down and the result is a compound that has
a different colour.
Utilizing
chemiluminescence in detecting bad breath.
One
of the more recently developed methods of testing for the
presence of compounds associated with bad breath relies on
the principle of chemiluminescence. This type of testing was
first introduced in 1999. When a sample containing sulfur
compounds (such as VSC's,
the types of compounds which cause bad breath) is mixed in
with the test's mercury compound the resulting reaction causes
fluorescence. The strength of this methodology is that it
can provide better selectivity and sensitivity when measuring
low levels of sulfur compounds, as compared to testing with
a Halimeter.
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