Do you have bad breath? What are the symptoms? How can you test yourself for the presence of halitosis?
Do you have bad breath?
How is your breath? Not sure? No doubt each of us has, at some point, unwittingly had bad breath (halitosis) only to be subsequently embarrassed by the reactions of others in response to it.
For any individual, the exact status of their own breath can be difficult to ascertain. The reason for this lies in the fact that the oral cavity is connected to our nose by way of an opening which lies in the back of our mouth (in the region of our soft palate). Since noses tend to filter out and ignore background odors, it filters out and ignores the quality of our own breath. This means that it is quite possible for a person to have bad breath, yet not be aware of it.
How can you tell if you have a breath problem?
If our noses can't reliably help us judge the quality of our own breath, how can we determine if we do have bad breath? One solution is to ask the opinion of a spouse or significant other. If you don't feel you can ask them, ask your dentist or hygienist at your next dental appointment, after all, evaluating oral conditions is part of their job. If you find this type of question too personal to ask an adult, don't overlook asking a child. As we all know, sometimes the least inhibited and most honest responses come from children.
Symptoms: How can a person can test the quality of their own breath?
There are ways you can objectively 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 try this second experiment. It will check the odor associated with the back portion 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 it's 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.
You now know. The fundamental cause of bad breath is...
Just as your experimentation has suggested, for most people the fundamental cause of bad breath 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 accumulate elsewhere in a person's mouth.)
The remainder of the text on this page describes the various methods by which dental researchers attempt to quantify bad breath. If you're interested in this topic of course please read on, otherwise you may want to skip to our next page which continues on with our discussion about causes of halitosis.
How academic researchers test for the presence of halitosis.
( Related page: How academic researchers and dental professionals categorize types of bad breath. )Before a dental researcher can evaluate the effectiveness of a cure for bad breath they must first have a way to quantify the person's level of malodor, both initially and after the cure they are studying has been administered. Some of the different methods researchers use to measure bad breath are discussed below.
Organoleptic testing for bad breath.
Judging a person's breath by way of organoleptic testing simply means that the researcher performing the breath evaluation has used their sense of smell (their nose) as the means for making a 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.
One of the problems associated with using organoleptic testing is that this technique is not totally objective. Another is that factors other than just breath odors can and do influence organoleptic evaluations. As examples, 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. Additionally, consumption or use of coffee, tea, juice, tobacco products and scented cosmetics by subjects prior to their evaluation can influence the testing.
As for quantifying the organoleptic measurement itself, what exactly does constitute a weak, strong, or average level of bad breath? Will each judge participating 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 acclimates to the odor and therefore loses much of its sensitivity. Breath malodor that seems exceedingly objectionable at the beginning of testing may seem quite less so as the evaluation continues.
Evaluating bad breath with gas chromatography.
A number of scientific fields utilize gas chromatographs to identify compounds found in the samples they are studying. Likewise, gas chromatographs have been employed by dentists conducting halitosis studies and have provided a means by which a researcher can definitively quantify the precise levels of various compounds present in someone's breath. It is considered to be the "gold standard" for measuring breath malodor.
While gas chromatography is probably the best way to test for the compounds associated with bad breath, it has not been widely utilized in research studies for several reasons. Gas chromatographs are relatively expensive and require 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 quantify halitosis.
A specialized type of sulfide monitor (termed a Halimeter) has been developed and it provides a means by which a tester can quantify certain aspects of a person's breath. These machines, first introduced in 1991, measure levels of sulfide gases. Some sulfides, such as hydrogen sulfide and methyl mercaptan (collectively referred to in dental literature as volatile sulfur compounds or "VSC's"), are known to be causative agents of bad breath. A Halimeter's reading showing a high level of sulfides in a person's breath suggests that a corresponding high level of VSC's are present, although the apparatus does not test for individual types of VSC's specifically.
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 a person's breath problems. The presence of some of these types of bacteria can be tested for by way of performing 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 of a patient's saliva that contains these bacteria is placed in with the BANA testing compound they cause it to break down, thus creating a color change in the testing medium.
Utilizing chemiluminescence to detect 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 chemiluminescence methodology is that it can provide better selectivity and sensitivity when measuring low levels of sulfur compounds, as compared to testing with a Halimeter.
Need help telling someone they have bad breath?
Our "Turkey" movie might be able to give you the help that you need to hint to someone that they have halitosis. The "share" button right above the movie has an "e-mail the movie's link" option.
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