Radio Spot – Halitosis & Bad Breath
Ben: Thanks for joining us. AM 1440 KUHL. It is Thursday and time once again for Dr. Dino’s Cool Truths About the Tooth, and today, we’re going to be talking, well, a little bit about your breath. We have a couple of issues related to that today, but first of all, welcome to Dr. Dino Bonyadii. Doctor, welcome back.
Dr. Bonyadi: Thank you, Ben. Good morning to you and our audience.
Ben: I’m sure this is something that maybe has popped up for our listeners out there a time or two in the past, and one of the issues is actually halitosis, so what is halitosis?
Dr. Bonyadi: Yes. Halitosis is basically bad breath. We all have experienced this at one time or another.
Ben: And it’s embarrassing.
Dr. Bonyadi: It could be. Yes.
Ben: So, halitosis. What causes this?
Dr. Bonyadi: Halitosis is caused by many different reasons, but main cause of halitosis is bacteria. Halitosis could be caused by food we eat, by beverages we drink. As we all know, if we drink alcoholic beverages, we do perspire the alcohol through our lungs, and you can smell that on a breath and also foods like garlic, onion. All of those. People think that if you eat garlic, the odor comes directly from your mouth. Actually, that’s not correct. Part of it is true. Yes, but most of it, as you eat garlic or onion, it gets absorbed in your system, and you ooze that through your pores on your body and inside of your mouth through your nose.
Ben: Now, what about people that have a dry mouth?
Dr. Bonyadi: Dry mouth. What happens is dry mouth causes less salivary flow, and less salivary flow means stickier saliva, and once saliva becomes stickier, bacteria adhere to teeth, to tongue, to cheek and it’s the byproduct… As bacteria consumes sugar and food particles that are in the mouth, what happens is the bacteria take that, use it as food, and as byproduct, they give off gases, which is sulfur gas, and the sulfur gas is actually what we smell as bad breath.
Ben: How do we get rid of that bad breath?
Dr. Bonyadi: Well, as far as food halitosis goes, you just got to let itself work its way through your system, but bacteria halitosis, which is what most people suffer from, only way to get rid of it is by getting rid of the bacteria, which is by flossing and brushing regularly. Also, audience and patients should be aware that besides brushing and flossing their teeth, especially for halitosis, brushing the tongue is a very important part of getting rid of bad breath. Now, some patients are gaggers where they… when they start brushing their tongue, they gag. There are special devices out there called tongue scrapers that you can purchase that helps in cleaning the tongue without gagging and therefore getting rid of bad breath.
Ben: We are speaking to Dr. Dino Bonyadii. Dr. Dino’s Cool Truths About the Tooth, and we’re talking about your breath today. We’re speaking a little bit about halitosis. Well, let’s talk about toothbrushing and toothpaste. Is there a certain toothpaste maybe that you would recommend for people out there?
Dr. Bonyadi: That’s very good question and a question that I come across very often in my practice. Let’s talk about toothbrushes first. First of all, I want our audience to use mainly soft toothbrushes. Do not use medium or coarse toothbrushes, and the reason is what you remove from your teeth as far as bacterial film, which we call biofilm goes, it’s kind of like… Imagine dust sitting on a countertop. You don’t need a sandpaper to get rid of that dust. All you need is a gentle towel, which a soft toothbrush will. If you use medium or coarse toothbrush, what you will do is you will abrade the root surface of the tooth, which has a very thin layer called cementum. The cementum is microns-thick, and by brushing hard, you will remove that, and then you will experience sensitivity to hot, cold and temperature.
Ben: So, you want to remove the bad stuff, but keep the good stuff?
Dr. Bonyadi: Exactly. You want to use a soft toothbrush. Gently brush and floss. I’m sure our audience have dentists and their hygienist have shown them proper techniques for flossing and brushing.
Ben: For toothpaste, I mean, there is tons of toothpaste varieties out there, so what do we use?
Dr. Bonyadi: Yes, that’s true. Toothpaste mainly is designed for taste. There is only… The only other ingredient that’s in toothpaste that’s beneficial is the fluoride. Now, we get a lot of fluoride in our diet. We get it in our water, so really, we’re not lacking in consumption of fluoride. Nowadays, periodontists, what they recommend is dry-brushing. Dry-brushing means brushing your teeth without any toothpaste. Basically, you wet your mouth, you wet your toothbrush, and you brush with that.
Dr. Bonyadi: The reason why they’re recommending that is they’re finding out that people do not brush enough. A normal brushing should take at least three minutes, which is a very long time. They found that as soon as people feel the taste of… fresh taste of toothpaste, they automatically subconsciously start thinking that they’ve gotten rid of all the bad bacteria and don’t do an adequate job at brushing.
Ben: Doctor, what about mouthwash?
Dr. Bonyadi: Mouthwashes are good for getting temporary fresh breath. We see a lot of commercials showing the mouthwash flowing through teeth, killing bacteria, getting rid of debris. That’s absolutely not true. As we talked about Perio Protect on our last program, nothing cuts through the gelatinous cover that bacteria have except hydrogen peroxide, so many of those mouthwashes out there do not do the job. Also, if our audience like to use mouthwashes, that’s fine. What I recommend is make sure the mouthwash you’re using does not have alcohol in it because repeated exposure to alcohol, we believe that it could lead to oral cancer.
Ben: As we talked about last week, Doctor, I know that we talked about that Perio Protect. If you can give us just like a brief recap on that too for people.
Dr. Bonyadi: Yes. Perio Protect is a very non-invasive no-side-effect treatment modality for treating gum disease, bad breath, people who have deep pockets and been recommended surgery. Now, if your dentist has recommended surgery, gum surgery, I would recommend trying Perio Protect before you proceed to a gum surgery. Of course, in adjunct to that, you may need cleaning or deep cleaning, scaling, root planing, not a surgical type, but a very noninvasive type, and then using Perio Protect. In a lot of cases, studies have shown that just using Perio Protect reverses the periodontal disease and therefore eliminating the need for surgery. We are one of the first offices on the Central Coast to offer this. Me and my staff are all certified, and we’re ready to treat patients.
Ben: All right. If you want to find out more about that or if you have any other questions, people can get a hold of you at your office at what phone number?
Dr. Bonyadi: 925-7343.
Ben: They can also go to your website and send an email too, right?
Dr. Bonyadi: Yes, drdinob.com is the website, and they can send me an email through the website, and also, they can find information about Perio Protect and all other dental procedures on our website.
Ben: We can like you on Facebook.
Dr. Bonyadi: Yes, please do.
Ben: Dr. Dino’s Cool Truths About the Tooth with Dr. Dino Bonyadii. Doctor, we’ll see you next time.
Dr. Bonyadi: Thank you, Ben. I like to wish you and our audience a wonderful day.