Hello Steemians,
Have you ever smelled your mouth in the morning? How does it smell's like.....? I know its pretty bad. Ever imagined what makes it smell so bad. After having brushed the tooth in the night, it smells in the morning. Its all because of Bacteria.
I just love to talk on the microbes, no matter what's my PhD topic now. I'm just fond of bacteria and always try of connect it to anything, wherever possibly I can. Working with microbes will make you love them actually. Well, they are also living, you can not name the individual one though. But growth of a slow growing bacteria.....when you see it coming after few day (A single colony on the agar plate). It's a joy and A Microbiologist only can understand that.
"Well, leave all that love for the microbe and starting over to the microbes which are present in the mouth and make your mouth stinky. Are they also causing any disease or there are some beneficial one too?" I'll try to cover whatever I can.
What makes it so smelly!
How to get rid of it?
Well, it is affecting about 65% population of America and the same goes for the whole world I guess. If you are one of them just remember these points, you may decrease it or even may get rid of it.
- Brush your teeth properly in the night and do it at least for 2-3 minutes, don't just wrap it up in 40-45 sec. Let the microbial flora have a taste of your toothpaste, It may sounds funny to you but the science behind it is your toothpaste has chlorine in it which inhibits the electron transport chain of the bacterial species and results in death. So, do it for a while.
- The most important part of brushing your teeth is clean your tongue back and forth every part of it, almost 85% of the flora is growing on your tongue only. You can notice the change if you clean your tongue properly.
- After brushing your teeth, just go directly to bed and don't take anything in between. Because the left over food in your mouth is the nutrient for the bacterial growth and they survive on that.
Basically, having a healthy attitude of brushing your teeth and keeping your mouth clean can cure your halitosis problem.
All these are just the basics what a normal person want to know. Lets talk about some science now!
There are several bacterial sp. present in our mouth, but largely we have Lactobacillus and Streptococcus species. Back there, working with the oral plaque samples I also found very huge number of such cultures. With Lactobacillus and Streptococcus there are also Campylobacter, Acinetobactor, Actinomycetes, Megasphaera, Veillonella, Aneurinibacillus, Porphyromonas and many more, but these are some of the common ones. In the study both the healthy and the diseased individual was examined and these are the species which are present in almost every individual. We isolated almost all the listed species and studied few of them for their specific activity. I will be sharing one of work here which got published also.
As I mentioned earlier the food left in your mouth and the lesions in gums and other cavity problems are the cause of bad odor. What people generally don't realize, that the anaerobic bacteria are the real reason behind their bad breath. The metabolic product they produce after consuming the proteins are malodour volatile sulfur compound, which makes your mouth stinks. The majority of species which generally causes halitosis are anaerobes, aerobic bacteria generally do not produces such sulfur containing byproducts. They uses fermentation as a way to produce energy out of the food which we provide and anaerobic respiration leads to the production of such odorous by product.
Many of the gram negative species like Porphyromonas are known to produce several endotoxins produced from their cell wall lipopolysaccharide by consuming the dead cells and debris from mouth. All the volatile sulfur containing compounds are very smelly, some of them produced by the mouth bacterium species are Hydrogen sulfide, putresine, methyl mercaptan and many more. Amino acids containing the sulfur side group Methionine and cystiene are mainly present in almost all the protein. So, keeping a proteiniceous diet in your mouth for the bacterium can give you a stinky smelling mouth. I wanted to share some of the research work what we have performed in our lab with these bad odor producing bacteria but it will be deviating the topic. May be some other time I will discuss in more detail about the research work what we have performed in our lab with these Anaerobic bacteria.
Are they only harming us!
Well, as you know with the bad odor bacteria good ones are also there. This I also mentioned in my previous post, with the bad ones we have the good ones too and we need to save them. As I love them, I care for them.
Bacteria are always considered as threat and are portrayed as only a disease causing creature. However, if they are procured and allowed to live in a balanced way, they can have a major impact on our health. It was found that, there are around more than 700 different species we have in our mouth and contains about 6 millions of them at a time. A healthy mouth with this huge number of microbes suggests the good ones are leading the odd ones there.
All of this are related to the diet, the increased consumption of carbohydrates has made heaven for the bad bacteria and let them infect our gums and enamel and let them grow. Excessive consumption of soft drinks carbohydrate rich drinks, cigarette, antibiotics etc has caused the mass destruction and created an imbalance of microbial flora not only in our mouth but in the whole body, wherever they are required. So, to achieve that we must change our diet.
Concluding Remark
Almost every one of us has faced the bad odor problem, but some time it may get worse. The odor what you smell in the morning is just because through out the night you mouth was dry and a really warm place for bacteria to grow. Otherwise, If your mouth stinks throughout the day it means it's time for you to go see a dentist. And strictly follow the prescription. Microbes are really a lovely yet deadly creature, treat them well they will give you the same in return.
References
Everyday health- Why do we have morning breath
The Irish news: Ask the Dentist
I'll be starting the series of microbial world very soon, here are some of the earlier article on Microbial world
Hope you find it interesting, If you do please upvote and follow my page for further interesting reads.
A very well detailed article. I never talk to anyone or open my mouth in the morning without brushing. It's been a practice since my young age. And the first thing that I do as soon as I get up from my bed is to brush my teeth and get rid of those bacteria. It's a practice that came to me from my mother and grandmother.
I thought you would have also covered the part where it explains how harmful it is to have a bed coffee without brushing teeth. I hate people who do that. I will just consider them idiots. I have a friend of mine who eats a full pack of biscuit as soon as he is up from his bed. Then later after doing all the interactions roaming here and there, he will then go and brush his teeth. The stupid reason that he gives is, "Have you seen animals brushing teeth?". Then I stopped advising him. I think till today he is continuing to do the same thing and hasn't realized the bad effects yet.
Ok leaving all that aside. According to me brushing teeth and taking care of teeth is very very important to lead a healthy life. Thanks for this wonderful article. I got to know so many new things from this article which I never knew before.
Thanks for the comment @bala41288 I'm glad you like it
Well, I must say this is something we learn from our elders. Oh, thanks for mentioning. It may have slipped from my mind, actually eating or drinking anything without brushing your teeth will eventually lead to swallowing all the microbial flora you have cultured overnight in your mouth. This results in the peptic ulcer and most of the time stomach get disturbed.Yeah, take care of your teeth and your health.
Cheers
It seems to me that rinsing your mouth with 3% hydrogen peroxide would inhibit or kill anaerobes. However, when I ask dentists they disagree. What is your opinion?
Hydrogen peroxide could be effect you internal skin, 3% can also harm you. If in any case you swollen it, that may not end up well.
Hi, this is a great article. However, I would like to point out, in my opinion, it would be better if you can put image sources of the pictures under the title "What makes it so smelly", under the image not at the end of the paragraph.
Actually, it's just a minor change. Nevertheless, your explanation on the topic is good. Keep it up.
Thanks for the suggestion @chloroform
Frankly speaking, I tried to do that but could not succeded. I also want to change If I could.....
Could you pls tell me the command for that or any web page where i can get it...
Thank you 😊
Sorry for the late reply. I've already text you in Discord the command. Good luck!
Nice my friend
Thanks @marzawi
This was an excellent explanation about this annoying issue we all have suffered sometimes.
When little I wasn't aware of the importance of cleaning the tongue, and it wasn't until my aunt who is a dentist explained to me, that I started to clean my tongue intensively everyday.
Taking care of our mouth is a serious subject, because its one of the worst places to have an infection.
Thanks for the comment @dedicatedguy
Yeah, it is one of the major health issues and can be worse if not taken care off. I have seen some of the bacterial infections of tongue, believe me they are horrible.
Really good post about halitosis @vinamra!
Our salivary production has enzymes that kill bacteria. However, while we are asleep decreases a lot, and as you said, if there is some food leftover for not having a good teeth brush before, it can go really bad for our breath and also our teeth!
Loved the post, and the analysis of microbes present was amazing!
I'm glad you find it interesting @deholt
Yeah, our saliva has all the necessary enzymes to keep them in control and most importantly saliva wont let the bacterium colonize to any surface. While we are asleep they start to grow. Proper cleaning and not leaving any food for their growth will keep you healthy.
Cheers
Wow, thanks for the information. I've learnt about the constituent present in my mouth and how precious and deadly they might be. Thanks, I'm enlightened
Thanks for the comment @sammee I'm glad you find it interesting.
You are welcome
If I may ask, will the washing of the tongue affect other good ones too?
Well, using a toothpaste which inhibits the electron transport chain of bacteria can not discriminate between the good one and bad one. It will kill both, the main objective is to stay infection free..... the microbial flora will never be getting vanished from your mouth. You just need to maintain the growth by maintaining the environment.
OK, thanks
This post has been rewarded with 100 % upvote from @indiaunited bot.
Great post! Enlightening and refreshing! 😉
Thanks @irelandscape
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