Bad Breath Remedies: What Works, and What Doesn’t
If you grew up in the United States in the 1950’s and 1960’s, you knew that there was one sure cure for bad breath. It was those little green chewing gums made with chlorophyll. Listerine was on the market, but it came in huge bottles, and carrying them around (although some people actually did), just looked weird. But anyone could carry a little package of chlorophyll-based gum for bad breath emergencies.
But if you grew up in the United States in the 1950’s and 1960’s, you probably remember that bad breath was a much more common occurrence than it is now. That’s because the little green chewing gums didn’t really work.
The information available at the time had been something like this. Bad breath is caused by bacteria. They don’t like chlorophyll. Parsley is loaded with chlorophyll. If you chew a bunch of parsley (the nineteenth century remedy) or you chew a gum like Clorets made with a lot of chlorophyll, then your bad breath would go away.
Only it didn’t.
Everything about chewing gum for bad breath isn’t bad. Chewing gum encourages salivation, and saliva washes food particles off the tongue. If you chew enough gum, you could get rid of bad breath in a day or two, provided you don’t eat anything else. There has to be a better way.
And there is. Medical care is almost never necessary. Check out these 10 home remedies for this embarrassing problem that really work, some of which you probably haven’t thought about before.
1. Don’t bite your nails.
And don’t use a toothpick to clean your teeth, either. Both practices can injure gums and create places for bad breath bacteria to grow. Floss by wrapping the floss around each individual tooth and pulling side to side, not up and down. Flossing up and down won’t work, because it can trap particles between teeth.
2. Brush your teeth, but don’t brush your teeth more than 3 times a day.
Toothpastes that contain sodium lauryl sulfate or sodium laureth sulfate can dry out your mouth, gums, and tongue. The drying creates tiny cracks that host halitosis-inducing microbes.
3. If you have a problem with tooth decay or gum decay, use hydrogen peroxide as a cleaning mouth rinse.
Just be sure it’s diluted hydrogen peroxide, usually a 3% solution. A sign you need to stop using hydrogen peroxide is “cotton mouth,” a lack of normal salivation.
4. Avoid doughnuts, cookies, cakes, and pies.
Sugar is food for bacteria, but it is starch that is the culprit causing sugar to stay in contact with your teeth and gums. If you can’t avoid sugar altogether, at least avoid foods that combine sugar and flour.
5. Consider herbal toothpastes and mouthwashes.
The North American herb bloodroot contains chemicals known as benzophenanthridine alkaloids. These are a kinder, gentler approach to controlling bad breath that does not kill bad breath germs, but keeps them from forming colonies in the mouth. This allows them to be rinsed away by drinking water, or, even better, green or white tea. Bloodroot or “sanguinarine” products for oral health won’t cause drying or cracking in your mouth the way alcohol-based mouthwash can.
6. If you have to get fillings, ask your dentist for alternatives to silver-mercury amalgam.
Faulty fillings create a breeding ground for the bacteria that cause bad breath. Overhanging margins accumulate plaque and shelter bacteria. Mercury-based fillings deplete antioxidant enzymes in small areas of the gums, exposing the matrix of the gums to bacterial attack. Other dental polymers are much less likely to cause this problem. Even if you don’t have cavities, see your dentist at least twice a year for cleanings to remove plaque.
7. If you take a daily vitamin and mineral supplement, make sure it contains no more than the RDI of molybdenum.
Molybdenum is essential to the process of sulfoxidation, the metabolic step in which the sulfur found in foods such as garlic is converted to sulfates and sulfides and combined various mineral ions. Molybdenum activates the enzyme sulfite oxidase, which is important for your entire body, but a cause of halitosis. Bad breath is a more commonly recognized problem in countries in which the diet contains high amounts of molybdenum. You can get too much molybdenum if your diet is high in liver-based products.
8. Consider using a tongue scraper.
That yellowish film on your tongue is a reservoir for bad breath germs. The best way to get rid of it is to scrape it off. You just want to be sure that the scraper doesn’t break while it is in your mouth. Stainless steel is breath. Gentle scraping is sufficient. Scraping so hard your tongue bleeds can cause problems of its own.
9. Try green tea toothpastes and mouthwashes.
Oral care products made with green tea provide a variety of antioxidants with tongue-twistingly technical names such epicatechin gallates. These chemicals are a kindler, gentler herbal approach to treating the bacteria that cause halitosis. They aren’t quite as efficient at stopping colony formation by bacteria as the products that contain bloodroot or sanguinarine, but they are better at relieving gum irritation and canker sores. These products also provide a small amount of vitamin C, several of the forms of vitamin E, zinc, manganese, selenium, and chromium.
10. Drink black, green, red, or white tea daily.
Black, green, and white tea, as well as red or rooibos tea, drunk up to 4 times a day, all provide tannins. These naturally occurring compounds “tan” the lining of the mouth and tongue so that they do not crack and fissure and give bacteria a place to grow. Common conditions that result in bad breath, such as Sjögren’s syndrome, getting over the flu, or treatment for irritable bladder or Parkinson’s disease, respond well to drinking tea.
Whether you put ice in your tea or drink it hot, you still get the benefit. The best time to drink tea is in the morning, so the tannins protect your mouth through all your meals and snacks.
If you have dry mouth, a combination of drinking tea or water and chewing sugar-free gum flavored with xylitol can keep saliva flowing to keep your mouth moist. The xylitol in the gum will also help prevent middle ear infections.
Garlic and onions are overrated as bad breath foods. If you eat garlic and onions, or if you take garlic supplements to prevent heart disease on the advice of your doctor, the good news is that a simple rinse of your mouth gets rid of up to 45% of the sulfur compounds that cause bad breath odor. And no matter what you do, six hours after your eat, almost no stinky breath caused by foods remains. A breath mint, however, only masks certain food odors, and can make others worse.
What about that old standby, Listerine?
There’s no doubt that Listerine can temporarily mask and improve bad breath. The problem is, it can cause bad breath, too.
The alcohol in Listerine is drying. As the lining of the mouth and tongue dry out, they crack, providing a new home for bacteria. An ironic side effect of using Listerine to control bad breath is that now for nearly 150 years it has caused bad breath.
