THE LINK BETWEEN YOUR BREATH AND YOUR OVERALL HEALTH
While bad breath is a condition that many people complain about, yet many people wouldn’t think it is more than a simple irritating problem. However, bad breath may signal a number of ailments, some of which are extremely serious.
Let’s take a look at which health problems bad breath might indicate.
Snoring: Sleeping with an open mouth or snoring can dry the mouth and create an ideal environment for unwanted bacteria to reproduce. The same favorable environment can occur during sleep due to food residues in the mouth. This ultimately leads to bad breath. Lying on your side, brushing the teeth before going to bed and using floss for food residues will prevent snoring.
Gum Disease: Metallic smells in the mouth can indicate a gingivitis, or hereditary gum disease. Smoking, irregular tooth brushing, and not using floss also increase this risk.
Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease: The rise of acidic stomach contents from the esophagus can carry gastric fluid and sometimes food residues into the oral cavity. This acidic content, which causes various discomfort in the throat and mouth, is suitable for bacteria, which causes a scented area.
Diabetes: Fruity halitosis may indicate a diabetes disease in which your body burns fat instead of sugar.
Helicobacter Pylori: Helicobacter Pylori, which can cause various diseases from stomach ulcers to cancer; it can cause nausea, pyrosis, pain or indigestion, as well as bad-smelling breath.
Respiratory Infections: In infections of the upper respiratory tract such as the nose and sinuses, your bad breath may be affected due to the increase in the amount and density of mucus. With the recovery of the infection, bad breath also weakens.
Medications: Some drugs such as nitrates, chemotherapy, sleeping pills used in the treatment of heart diseases, with the chemicals they contain, and some drugs cause bad breath because they dry the mouth.
Tonsil Stones: Tonsil stones can be caused by food contamination of your tonsils, calcium or magnesium stones settling there. If you cannot get rid of them with simple methods such as a toothbrush or cotton swab, you may experience an increase in bacteria due to the irritation it creates, and as a result, bad breath problems. Gargling after meals and brushing the tongue along with the teeth are protective measures.
Loss of Water in the Body: When there is not enough water in your body, your saliva decreases and bacteria increase due to dry mouth. Diseases such as Sjörgen’s Syndrome and scleroderma can also cause dry mouth and foul odor.
Infection: An infection in the mouth that can occur for many reasons means bad breath due to excessive bacteria accumulation. In such cases that may require antibiotic treatment, it may be necessary to keep the area as clean as possible and to gargle with salt water several times a day.
Liver Failure: Fetor hepaticus, also known as the smell of death, may develop in liver failure with symptoms such as whitening in the eyes and yellowing of the skin. In such a case, the breath has a sweet and musty smell.
Renal Failure: In advanced stage renal failure requiring dialysis or kidney transplantation, a bad breath that resembles a fishy odor may occur.
Finally, regarding the smell of breath, our advice is to solve your dental and gum problems first. When these treatments are performed by your dentist, mouth-borne odors should not remain. In addition, using oral probiotics and supporting your oral care with alcohol-free zinc-containing mouthwashes also help you get rid of naturally occurring bad breath. Oral probiotics allow the “good bacteria” to multiply among the bacteria in our oral flora. This naturally means the reduction of pathogenic bacteria and therefore the reduction of bad breath caused by their toxic residues.
Even after dental treatments and supportive treatments are applied, if bad breath affects your daily life negatively, in this case, we recommend you to have a detailed control both to have the health problems mentioned above and to have a detailed check for other problems. As we mentioned at the beginning, bad breath can be a symptom or a precursor of many other diseases, it should not be neglected.