Two BB theories

[searching]

Two thoughts recently occurred to me about what may contribute to the BB of some people. I have no data to support these thoughts. I am posting these theories for your consideration.

1. Excessive tooth porosity harboring anaerobic bacteria.

Bacteria are about one micron in size. For decades toothpaste manufacturers have added fluoride salts, e.g. stannous fluoride, sodium fluoride, to harden teeth. The hardening occurs as these additives work to fill tooth porosity caused by demineralization. The pores in the teeth, that develop by eating and drinking acetic items, are micron-sized tubules, large enough to harbor micron-sized bacteria. Tooth brushing may remove surface plaque; however, the bacteria living beneath the surface are bathed with nutrient-rich saliva and may repopulate surface plaque shortly after brushing. The plaque is bacteria that accumulate layers-deep, sufficient to grow anaerobically. The fluoride salts are intended to refill the tubules with inorganic material; however, some of us may have oral pH that prevents these fillers from remaining in place.

2. Night time, low blood-oxygen levels that impede digestion and accumulate toxins in the body.

Blood oxygen levels can decline as one sleeps. Those who suffer from excessive snoring and/or sleep apnea have blood oxygen levels that fall lower than in most people. Oxygen is important in food metabolism. In the absence of sufficient oxygen, acids can accumulate. I ask if it is possible to have components accumulate overnight in the body due to the lack of a fully-oxygenated system over an eight-hour period. How long, upon awaking, would it take to have a body rid itself of these metabolites - seconds, minutes, hours? Would this produce odor from the body?

[Cured]

I am posting these theories for your consideration.

1. Excessive tooth porosity harboring anaerobic bacteria.

Even if this theory is correct it is missing a critical piece of information: a food source. See, bacteria by themselves don't natually give off foul odors. Whether it's a person's mouth breath, underarm sweat odor, foot stink or feces stench it's ALWAYS a two part equation of the bacteria AND some food they are digesting that produces the foul-smelling gases that make us pinch our noses as byproduct.

Bacteria /= foul odor
Bacteria + food source = foul odor

My intention here isn't to rant against you, but it does become frustrating to see people on this site time and time again fall into that error in their postings. Various people want to try or recommend colon cleanses, system flushes and antibiotics and antifungals to get rid of bad breath. What they don't understand, unless they are infection-level populations, bacteria will ALWAYS grow back to a natural level in the body. So attacking the first part of the equation is always doomed to fail.

Our mouths always are cesspools of bacteria, even right after brushing,no matter where they're hiding. The key is not to kill the bacteria themselves (because that will always fail, as noted above, and it's unhealthy), but to take away their constant food source: food debris from the food we eat.

2. Night time, low blood-oxygen levels that impede digestion and accumulate toxins in the body.

I can't knock you too much on this one, because before I had my wisdom theeth extracted I would come up with minute, intricately complicated theories like this one. But as I used to do, you're just thinking too much on this one. Digestion and excretion are controlled unconsiously,and for how much ever little they might slow down when we slow down or go to sleep, our body's homeostatic mechanisms don't allow things to slow down to dangerous levels.

Besides, the rate of digestion would largely be the same for most people. I mean, I certainly haven't noticed a difference between when I used to have horrendous breath and now that I've been cured in how often I feel like I have to go to the bathroom every morning when I wake up. It's prety much the way it's always been, although my bad breath is gone.

90%+ of people with chronic bad breath don't require any solution this creative, and generally I find that the more creative a solution the person is thinking of, the more under their nose (literally) the problem in reality is.

[halitosisux]

Searching, i had recently deleted/disposed of a lot of very good information on BB and as i was doing so i found myself reading most of it all over again, and its interesting you should mention the porosity of teeth because this was one of the things which really caught my attention because it never really had until i deleted all this info, since it put into perspective the size of these "pores" in relation to the size of bacteria. It may well be a factor for some people and i wonder if anyone has tried sensodyne type toothpastes which fill these pores to see the effect it has? A single tooth which has become "rotten" in this way will stink a mouth out and produce its own very strong odour, yet could so easily deceiveand draw attention elsewhere. Its a shame there is no way of "marking" teeth for the odour which any might be producing, in the same way that staining can show plaque buildup.
As regards to the theory behind oral bacteria and halitosis, from my own experience with a small cesspool of a gum pocket inside my mouth, i could syringe this pocket out with neat bleach, rinse my mouth out with chlorhexidine mouthwash and scrape my tongue to rawness and eat NOTHING whatsoever, but bacteria would soon repopulate with an exponential rate and the odours would start pouring out eventually within a few hours. I think there is ample "food" for bacteria in saliva and dead cells etc no matter what we do or dont eat ourselves.
My own opinion is that everyone has the bacteria and the environment to produce a certain "level" of odour causing compounds. For most people these "levels" will be low enough to prevent these compounds from reaching a "level" that will become perceptible in the breath. If there is any factor, such as chemical/environmental (pH, oxygen etc) or disease etc these levels will become elevated and the balance will swing towards perceivable levels of breath odour being produced - as happens to even BB free people during the night because bacteria are free to go wild and these foul compounds are allowed to build up.

[searching]

Even if this theory is correct it is missing a critical piece of information: a food source.

Bacteria /= foul odor
Bacteria + food source = foul odor

Cured,

Thank you for the reply. I should have been clearer.

In the first theory the nutrient-rich food source is saliva composed of items in the following list. It contains a steadily-supplied diet of components with the potential to foul in the presence of anaerobic bacteria and to support their accumulation. People produce about 1.5 liters of saliva daily.

Saliva composition:
• 98% water
• mucus, i.e., mucopolysaccharides and glycoproteins;
• antibacterial compounds (thiocyanate, hydrogen peroxide, and secretory immunoglobulin A)
• Enzymes: á-amylase, lingual lipase, lysozyme, salivary lactoperoxidase
• Lactoferrin, Immunoglobulin A
• Proline-rich proteins, salivary acid phosphatases A+B, N-acetylmuramoyl-L-alanine amidase, NAD(P)H dehydrogenase (quinone), superoxide dismutase, glutathione transferase, class 3 aldehyde dehydrogenase, glucose-6-phosphate isomerase, and tissue kallikrein
• cells: Possibly as much as 8 million human and 500 million bacterial cells per mL.

Regarding theory 2: Long-distance runners, or those doing strenuous exercise, accumulate lactic acid, up to 10X above resting levels, due to a temporary, localized shortage of oxygen in muscle cells. I’m asking if a prolonged shortage of oxygen, during oxygen-starved sleep, impedes proper cell metabolism, resulting in above-average concentrations of volatile by-products.

[Spits32]

Hey all interesting theories. I have one of my own. I suffered with BB from about age 14-22. I am now 24 and have been bb free for about two years. It is unbelievable. Here is what I did that finally worked.

My doc gave me a small squeeze bottle from one of his free collections, NeilMed was the brand (you can get them online or at CVS for like 10 bucks). Basically I just started rinsing my sinuses out twice a day morning and night with warm water mixed with the little salt packets that it comes with. After about a month I started doing it once daily or every other day if I started to feel the post nasal drip coming back. Side note: once you run out of salt packets, make sure you continue with NON-iodized salt from the super market. Don't ask me why but it might have to do with not wanting to shoot iodine up your nose on a daily basis.

Secondly, I started taking 1 pill per day of Super Acidophilus that I ordered online. Basically it is just a super concentrated pill of "beneficial bacteria" (you know like the yogurt that Jamie Lee Curtis sells to old ladies in order to regulate their bowels). Do some research, a lot of the bottles are like 1 billion or 2 billion cells per pill, but you definitely want something 2+ billion or more. They are a tad expensive, but a lot of the online sellers do deals like buy 3 get 2 free or something like that, and I just stock the extras in my fridge.

Thirdly, and this stuff is just common sense, brush, floss, and rinse daily. I use those one-time-use flosser things you can find at cvs, they are a little wasteful which I don't like but they REALLY get the job done. I then use Listerine Whitening mouthwash as a pre-brush rinse. Feel free to try other brands, just make sure they don't have any alcohol in them as this will just dry your mouth out and add more bacteria. I just like the whitening one because it has peroxide which foams up and is excellent at freshening your breath. I remember rinsing with hydrogen peroxide and baking soda back when I was a teenager and trying just about everything to get rid of my bb. Not pleasant.

Finally I brush, no fancy toothpaste really, and I have a tongue scraper on the back side of the toothbrush which is really nice just to get any stray bacteria hangin out there.

So all in all, I do this in the morning and takes me an extra 15-20 minutes tops. But it is well worth it and for me was the only way I solved my bad breath.

In terms of theories, I definitely think bacteria was feeding off the mucous dripping into the back of my throat (commonly known as PND or post nasal drip). And the surest way to get rid of it is to rinse that junk out EVERY DAY. If I slip up and don't rinse out my sinuses for 3-5 days I can definitely feel the difference in my mouth.

So, I hope this helps, I remember scouring boards like this one late into the night for many a year. I figured I'd come back and give some words of wisdom now that I kicked that problem to the curb. Good luck everyone.