What Causes Bad Breath?

The most common cause of halitosis is the anaerobic bacteria that live in a person’s mouth.

For the majority of people (85% to 90% of those who have bad breath or halitosis), the single most frequent cause of breath odor problems is bacteria that live in their mouth. Bacteria, just like humans, go through their lives consuming foods and excreting wastes. The waste products produced by some oral bacteria are sulfur compounds, and it is this type of odoriferous waste product that usually lies at the root of a person’s breath problems.

Have you ever smelled a rotten egg? The stench associated with rotten eggs is caused by the sulfur compound, hydrogen sulfide. The stinky smell emanating from feed lots and barnyards is one created by the sulfur compound methyl mercaptan. The odor you associate with the ocean is in part due to the presence of dimethyl sulfide. And each of these types of sulfur compounds is also excreted as a waste product by the bacteria that live in our mouths!

As a class, dentists refer to these compounds as “volatile sulfur compounds” (VSCs). The term “volatile” simply describes the fact that these compounds evaporate readily, even at normal temperatures. The extreme volatility of VSCs explains how these compounds have the ability to offend those around us, instantly.

While volatile sulfur compounds are the principle causative agents of bad breath, the bacteria that live in our mouth produce other waste products, too. Some of these have their own unique and unpleasant smell. A few of these waste byproducts are:

Cadaverine – the smell we associate with corpses.

Putrescine – the compound responsible for much of the foul odor produced by decaying meat.

Skatole – the characteristic smell of human fecal matter.

Isovaleric Acid – the smell of sweaty feet.

How surprised you must be to discover that this wonderful mix of compounds emanates from the mouths of humans!  And no one is an exception.  Everyone has some amount of these unpleasant compounds in their breath. Fortunately, however, at low levels these odorous compounds cannot be detected by the human nose. It’s only when the amount of these compounds becomes elevated that others can detect our “bad” breath.

For more, read the complete article at www.animated-teeth.com.