Bad Breath: Why Do You Have It?

Bad breath… What is the cause?

The bacteria in your gut can produce certain compounds that can affect your breath. For example, if there is an overgrowth of certain bacteria in your gut, it can lead to the production of sulfur compounds, which can cause bad breath. These compounds can be released through your breath or sweat.

Additionally, poor gut health can also lead to other health issues that may contribute to bad breath, such as acid reflux, which can cause a sour taste and odor in the mouth.

Therefore, taking care of your gut health can potentially improve bad breath. Eating a balanced diet with plenty of fiber and fermented foods, staying hydrated, and managing stress levels can all help improve gut health.

Maintaining good oral hygiene, such as brushing and flossing regularly and using mouthwash, can also help prevent bad breath.

Watch Dr. Vikki’s video to understand the situation better.

Transcript of the video

Do you have bad breath? It’s hard to know yourself. It really is. So you really have to ask somebody in your life who will tell you the truth about your breath, and find out you do have bad breath. Certainly there’s things to rule out, like poor oral hygiene, brushing your teeth, flossing. You do want to go to your dentist, to make sure there is no infections in your mouth as far as your gums or maybe something that needs a root canal. Those things, local to the mouth, can affect your breath.

Bad breath and h-pylori

However, over and above that, the most common reason is poor digestion. Particularly we want to rule out a bacteria in the stomach called h-pylori. It stands for helicobacter pylori. And that is a bacterial infection that you get in the stomach: over the very long-term, it can create ulcers. It can create stomach cancer.

This is not a rare bacteria. It’s very common in our environment.

When you have a strong immune system, it just handles it. If you’re exposed to it, the nice acidic environment in your stomach kills it, and you don’t have to worry about future exposure. It comes, you kill it, just the way your immune system is designed.

But what happens if you have this bacteria and it’s propagating and it’s perpetuating in the stomach? That is a very common cause of bad breath. The type of bad breath when you are within a foot of the person, you want to lean backwards.

So it’s important, not just because you don’t want to have bad breath; it goes much deeper than that.

Bad breath and what is happening inside

Maybe you’re on a proton pump inhibitor (PPI) or you take antacids because you have heartburn or acid reflux.

There are many more videos in which I discuss Hiatal Hernia Syndrome. We’ll get to that later.

The point is that your stomach is designed to be a bag of acid. It is that nice acidic environment that when you swallow things in your food that happen to have bacteria or parasites or anything that’s non-hospitable to your body, that acidic environment handles it, it destroys it. That’s why it’s a bag of acids.

Now you’ve been on these antacids or these proton pump inhibitors for a while, and you don’t have that acidic environment. Not only is your digestion compromised, but your ability to kill bad guys is compromised as well. And it’s not a good scenario. It’s very common in this country. I think doctors truly abuse antacids. Not to say it’s not miserable having heartburn acid reflux, I completely understand that. But the root of it, the way to fix it, is to understand why the stomach is spasming and squirts that acid up your esophagus. That’s what heartburn and acid reflux is.

Bad breath: Educate yourself

It’s not the stomach’s fault that it’s got an acidic environment. It’s supposed to. It’s just not supposed to be compressed such that it shoots the acid upward. So if this is you, once again, go to somebody who will tell you straight whether you have bad breath or not. And if that’s you, and you really want to take the next steps, we’re certainly happy to help.

I want you to learn more about Hiatal Hernia Syndrome here, and really educate yourself because this is not something that you just want use more mouthwash [to cover up] as a patient told me the other day… That’s not getting to the root cause. And what you’re doing is you’re really compromising not just your immune system, but your entire gut health. And without good gut health, it’s really impossible to have a healthy body.

Book your health consultation at 727-335-0400.

Additional resources:

• Read Dr. Vikki Petersen’s book on Hiatal Hernia Syndrome: how this condition impacts your life and remains misdiagnosed
• What is Hiatal Hernia Syndrome? A video by Dr. Vikki.