STOMATOLOGY > Halitosis (bad breath)
Halitosis is the medical term for bad breath. It bothers not only the people who suffer from this problem, but also those around them. It can also affect a person's mental health. About 25% of the population suffers from bad breath. On the Czech market, we can find many products designed to fight bad breath (e.g. chewing gum, mouthwash), but all of these are only a temporary solution, as they do not solve the cause of the problem.
What are the causes of bad breath?
Bad breath can have many causes. The most serious are some general diseases, such as diseases of the digestive tract (stomach ulcer, inflammation of the gastric mucosa, inflammation of the esophagus), diseases of the respiratory system (cold, angina, inflammation of the nasopharynx), or diabetes. However, these causes are the cause of bad breath in only a small number of people.
Bad breath tends to be short-term when it is caused by the consumption of aromatic foods such as onions, garlic or certain types of cheese, as well as by drinking coffee or alcohol.
Another cause of bad breath can be regular smoking, which affects the breath very negatively. In this case, the only possible and effective solution is to limit and ideally stop smoking.
Lack of saliva also contributes to bad breath. Saliva normally washes the oral cavity and thus cleans it. However, if we do not produce enough of them, the oral cavity is not naturally cleaned and bad breath occurs. A typical example is bad breath in the morning. At night, saliva secretion is reduced by up to 90%, the oral cavity dries out and is not as protected by saliva as during the day. However, this problem of unpleasant morning breath will disappear after a thorough cleaning of the teeth in the morning after waking up.
Up to 90% of the causes of bad breath must looked for in the oral cavity. The reason is insufficient hygiene, gingivitis or periodontitis, as well as a coating on the tongue. Advanced tooth decay also contributes to the smell. The initial cause of bad breath is dental plaque, which contains anaerobic bacteria that produce foul-smelling sulphur. Therefore, proper oral hygiene is important, thanks to which dental plaque is removed together with food residues, thus there is no chance of bad breath.