When You Can’t Chew Gum For Your Bad Breath
One of the unfortunate things about bad breath is that we might not know we have bad breath until we speak. At this stage, we have engaged in a business or social situation where we can see people shy away from us - even unconsciously - in the very moment we are trying to improve our relationship with them.
If this group knows us well, this is a minor problem. Friends are more likely to be forgiving of the little things about us. But if we do not know these people well, we can only cloud the all important first impressions which are the fundamental principle of any relationship - social, intimate or business.
Bad breath is a problem - frustrating, and often recurrent. Perhaps it is covered by mints and sweets, but there are situations where you can not always chew gum. Certainly not at a business meeting, lunch is impractical and it is impossible when we are intimate with someone.
Bad breath is caused by bacteria. More specifically, the volatile sulfur compounds that are the result of the disinegration of two sulfur-containing amino acids, methionine and cysteine. These bacteria live in the mouth and throat, and because the bacteria are anaerobic, they do not live on the surface of the tongue.
The bad news is that you can not get rid of these bacteria on a permanent basis, despite the promise of some treatments for bad breath. And you really do not want them to, despite the inconvenience they cause when they are working overtime to produce a bitter taste and oderous metabolic byproducts. These bacteria are in fact part of the digestive process, which begins in the mouth. You need them and they need you.
There are things that make this normal part of digestion worse, however. Foods such as dairy products and eating too much protein.
That's one of the common side effects of the high protein Atkins diet. The proteins of these foods provides these bacteria more "fuel" to create more sulfur compounds volatile.
They are doing their job, with very unpleasant after effects. And coffee contains acids that allow bacteria to multiply. So for the social situation in which you want to minimize bad breath, is a simple thing to avoid these foods and beverages.
Tea, on the other hand, can stop the growth of these bacteria. Researchers at the University of Chicago in Illinois have found that tea polyphenols can not only reduce the production of volatile sulfur compounds by 30%, but make it harder for bacteria to multiply.
The active polyphenols in this remedy bad breath are catechins and theaflavins. Catchetins are found in both green and black tea, and theaflavins are found only in black tea. So a strategy to prevent bad breath can be to avoid alcohol at important lunches and dinners, and drink black tea instead! Alcohol willaggravate bad breath because it dries out the mouth.
