Sunday, June 22, 2008

Bad Breath

All this is from Mercola and his vital votes: It can be caused by several factors, including systemic diseases, gastrointestinal and/or upper respiratory tract disorders, and microbial metabolism from your tongue, saliva or dental plaque.
Certain bacteria residing on your teeth or tongue surface, or in periodontal pockets are particularly odor-inducing, as are bacterial species associated with gingivitis.
Mouthwashes are only effective against bad breath caused by intraoral factors. Gargling and swishing can't help you much if your problem stems from an imbalance of bacteria in your intestinal tract, for example.
Treating Bad Breath from the Inside Out
Maintaining a healthy digestive system is far more important than most people can imagine. An imbalance between healthy and unhealthy bacteria here can lead to a wide variety of health problems; foul breath and body odor being some of the least problematic.
However, if you suffer from either, I'd highly recommend limiting the primary fertilizer for the bacteria that cause bad breath and that is, you guessed it: SUGAR, and grains that rapidly break down to sugar. When you eat these highly processed foods they cause bad odor-causing bacteria to grow out of control.
Once you have cut down the fuel that causes them to grow you can then replenish the good bacteria by taking probiotics to re-establish proper balance and health to your digestive system. By keeping your digestive system healthy, combined with an all-natural essential oil mouth rinse, bad breath should be a thing of the past.
(The smell of rot is what we are talking about. That unmistakable smell of putrefaction associated with rotten eggs, decomposing abscesses, periodontal diseases, sinus and lung infections, rotting undigested fecal matter, or spoiled fish. Putrefaction is the rotten egg smell of scavenging bacteria digesting and decomposing structural sulfur-bonds in proteins. An inflammatory crisis has occurred. Significant numbers of immune cells are dying.........
Sometimes the source of odor is a thick coating on top of the tongue. Sugar disables protein-digesting enzymes produced by the pancreas and puts our patrols of cleansing gobbler white blood cells to sleep.........
When one has bad breath or smelly tongue or gums, the brain is frying and thought processing is fuzzy. Bad breath is immune and metabolic crisis.......
Support your health of your mouth and body with the proper diet for your metabolic type and supplement with whole food supplements.)"--vital votes

"A 1995 study by Nicole Didry at the College of Pharmaceutical and Biological Sciences in Lille, France, found that thyme oil at very small concentrations (<500 ppm) killed the pathogenic organisms responsible for tooth decay, gingivitis, and bad breath, and a six-month, double-blind controlled clinical study at the University of Maryland similarly found that the essential oils of thyme, peppermint, wintergreen, and eucalyptus dramatically improved oral hygiene. "

"The essential oils most commonly used for mouthwashes and herbal rinses include:
Thyme
Peppermint
Wintergreen
Eucalyptus
(I use the most divine mouthwash which is great for a pick up after brushing or as needed. It is certified organic and has the following ingredients: aloe vera, spearmint essential oil, peppermint essential oil, sea salt, cinnamon, clove essential oil, nyrrh essential oil, sage extract and thyme extract.)"--vital votes

(Swishing around hyrdogen peroxide before I brush my teeth helps take my bad breath away.
I also take the Standard Proccess protocol for halitosis [bad breath]. It also seems to be working, which is the good thing!)--vital votes

(Instead of using artificial mouthwash, try this: chew cinnamon, or cardamom, if brave, cloves. Brush your teeth by sea salt.)

(For the past several months we have been cleaning our teeth with a paste made of approx. 2 parts baking soda (1-1/2 cups), to 1 part coconut oil (3/4 cup), 1/2 part olive oil (about 1/3 cup) and about 1+ tsp essential oil - peppermint and/or spearmint - I prefer peppermint. I adjust all ingredients, it's never exact. Store in small baby food jars - when it's very warm you have to stir this up sometimes. I love this recipe because my mouth always feels clean, placque is history, no more sensitive teeth, and our toothbrushes and sinks never have all that gunk buildup. I even notice a difference in my mouth when I wake up in the morning. After reading this article I can see why it works, and I will add a little thyme essential oil and perhaps some eucalyptus.)

(We've used a special formula I came up with in my house for a while now. I take a pint mason jar as my start and fill it 1/3 of the way up with raw apple cider vinegar. The rest is clean filtered water. I decant that into blue, green, or amber bottles with corks or lids so light can't penetrate. To each bottle, I add anywhere from 5-10 drops each of usually two essential oils. I like to experiment with the flavors, but you can use lemon, tea tree (great if you have gum disease), tangerine, rosemary, peppermint, spearmint, lavender, myrrh, lime, bergamot. All of these have some anti-microbial type protection in one form or another. You don't have to mix them, but we like lemon-peppermint and lavender-peppermint a lot here. I also like to switch off different oils each time I make it so the bacteria doesn't build a resistance to whatever oil we're using.)

[See post on Teeth and Gum Health for other tips. Also if you have Candida (yeast) you should get rid of it as it can cause bad breath. See post relating to that.]

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting article on ways to prevent bad breath - I like the recipe for the stuff in the jar.

oxyrich said...

Interesting post, thank you for sharing the information.