Treating Halitosis Can Be As Easy Changing Your Diet

Halitosis.  Bad breath.  It can be really embarrassing for you and can make you unattractive to others.  I know that sounds really harsh.  But let's face it.  We have five senses.  If you're totally striking out on one of them, the brain might not be interested in the input from the other four.  Whether that's really true or not, halitosis is not something that you want to endure or to inflict on others.  Fortunately, treating halitosis is not that difficult.  Sometimes it can be as easy as changing your diet.

This is especially true in the case of transient halitosis.  Transient means occasional, something that happens every once in a while.  Curing halitosis that appears for a short while as a result of eating certain types of foods is as easy as avoiding those types of foods in the future.  Some people seem to be able to eat garlic and onion and get away with it.  For others, it can result in serious bad breath for 24 to 36 hours.  You may not be particularly excited about changing your diet to avoid halitosis, but sometimes we have to make difficult choices.

Curing halitosis of the chronic variety can be a little more challenging, but it's still possible.  The most common cause of chronic halitosis is poor oral hygiene.  Essentially, this means there's not enough brushing and flossing going on.  The best practice is to brush after every meal, floss once a day, and use your toothbrush or a tongue scraper to clean your tongue.  Regular visits to your dentist every six months will also help.

In addition to improving your oral hygiene habits, there are several dietary choices you can make to treat halitosis.  One of the best foods you can add to your diet if you're not eating it already is yogurt.  Yogurt is filled with live cultures of good bacteria.  The good bacteria can help to crowd out the bad bacteria in your mouth and in your body.  Some studies have shown that a steady diet of yogurt for least six weeks can cut the levels of oral bacteria in your mouth by 80%.  With all the great choices on today's yogurt aisle, adding yogurt to your diet should be easy.

Certain herbs are quite helpful in treating halitosis.  Aniseed, cloves, rosemary and thyme are the best herbs to try.  Small amounts of these herbs can be chewed or you can make an herbal tea.

Cinnamon has turned out to be remarkably potent for curing halitosis.  The use of cinnamon has actually been shown to lower bacteria levels in your mouth.  One way to add this to your diet is to chew cinnamon gum.  Remember to stick with sugarfree varieties so that you don't promote tooth decay.

Treating halitosis successfully requires that you drink healthy amounts of water.  Most experts recommend that you drink 64 ounces of water per day.  It's really best to make drinking water a habit instead of waiting to feel thirsty.  Sometimes you can get dehydrated without really feeling thirsty.  Drinking water regularly will help to wash bits of food out of your mouth and will also make sure you're hydrated enough to produce plenty of saliva.

Did you know that drinking alcohol can contribute to halitosis? Curing halitosis could be as simple as cutting down on your alcohol intake.  Alcohol tends to dry out your mouth and could also contribute to digestive problems connected with halitosis.

You may think that things will be fine as long as you have some mouthwash and chewing gum around.  Unfortunately, curing halitosis, at least the chronic kind, takes more than these temporary solutions.  If you don't discover and deal with the root cause of your chronic halitosis, then bad breath will return just as soon as the gum is gone and the mouthwash wears off.

Although having bad breath can be intensely embarrassing when it's pointed out to you, especially if you had no idea, curing halitosis is very possible.  To sum up, avoid foods that you know give you problems, make sure you improve your oral hygiene habits, eat yogurt every day and drink lots of water.  If halitosis is still a problem after all that, talk to your dentist.  There may be something else going on over which you have no control.