You know the feeling: whispering sweet nothings to your sweetie, or maybe leaning in to deliver a clever punch line, you suddenly have to pull back, embarrassed, because you just got a whiff of something foul—emanating from your own mouth.
Bad breath can wreak major havoc on people’s social lives, self-esteem, and—ahem—sex lives. Checkout aisles are bursting with mints, mouthwashes, and myriad chewing gums promising to prevent stinky breath. As someone who has refrained from leaning in too close a few times for fear of grossing out her conversation partner, I’m ready to learn what I can do to prevent halitosis from happening in the first place.
Causes
Bad breath could be rooted either in our mouths or deeper in our digestive tracts. To treat it, we’ve got to figure out what’s causing it.
Food
Addicted to onion-and-garlic pizza? Foods that contain pungent oils are the most obvious places to look for the sources of bad breath. As we chew and digest these foods, our bloodstream absorbs their oils and carries them to our lungs, then releases the odors through our breath until our bodies have eliminated the food—which can take up to seventy-two hours.
Dental Problems
The breakdown of food particles can cause a foul odor as well. “A lot of people think halitosis is caused by eating certain foods,” says Sarah Gwerder, a California-based dental assistant. “Actually, bad breath can be caused by the sulfur compounds released in our digestive process—regardless of the type of food.”
This means that smelly breath often strikes when our oral hygiene slides a bit. “All those little grooves on your tongue trap small food particles and bacteria,” says Gwerder. “Without brushing them away, they sit and cause that odor.” Brushing and flossing your teeth (and tongue!) regularly banishes these odor culprits.
Tobacco Products
Smoking dries out your mouth and causes its own unpleasant odor. “You can always smell smokers the second they open their mouths,” says Gwerder, “even if they refrained from smoking before coming in.”
Severe Dieting
Extreme dieters can develop an unsavory “fruity” smell from ketoacidosis, the breakdown of chemicals that happens during fasting. What’s the point of being skinny if you smell too bad for anyone to get near you?
Dry Mouth
Saliva helps cleanse and moisten our mouths—important, since a dry mouth enables dead cells to gather on the tongue, gums, and cheeks. The dead cells decompose and cause an odor, which is most noticeable when we wake up feeling parched—such as when we have morning breath. Some medications also lead to a dry mouth.
