Bad Breath
 The teenage years can be very delicate and tumultuous times for teens.
It's at this time that personal hygiene begins to take center stage and nobody know that better than "Tom."
You see, when Tom was 15 years old he developed bad breath and it wasn't long afterwards that every person would let him know in best supportive, kind and nurturing method high-schoolers are famous for.
"Girls would tell me my breath stank right to my face." "I tried every bad breath remedy I could find -- mouthwashes, sprays, gingivitis chewing gum ... I even had my tonsils removed. I felt helpless."
Decades would pass before Tom found the help he needed at the California Breath Center, one of a dozen facilities that have sprouted up recently to fight bad breath causes. Along with dentists who treat halitosis, they're bringing new advance (and hopefully better smelling breath) to the estimated 25 million Americans who suffer like they are wearing a scarlet letter.
The clinic's co-founder, dentist Harold Katz, had Tom breathe into a tube connected to a device called a halimeter, a breath-measuring machine that dentists began using about four years ago. His readout was sky high. As Tom learned, most bad-breath problems occur when your mouth harbors a surplus of anaerobic bacteria, which emit smelly sulfur compounds. "The bacteria feast on protein found in plaque, food debris and dead cells," says Katz. Some people are plagued with an extra dose of this bacteria, which can hide in the mouth even if you brush regularly. And trying to banish this bacterial smell with regular mouthwashes can be like using a squirt gun to put out a forest fire. Fortunately, the oral health hygiene program that could change your life is fairly simple. In addition to brushing and flossing, Bailey now rinses with chlorine dioxide, an antimicrobial agent, and scrapes his tongue every day. Products including TheraBreath, RetarDex and Oxyfresh contain chlorine dioxide in a stabilized form, which experts say becomes active in the mouth. Another -- ProFresh, introduced in 1993 by periodontist Jon L. Richter, DMD, PhD--significantly reduced mouth odors for about 30 hours in the company's tests. Tongue scraping is another important weapon for attacking the enemy where it lives. "We like to think of the tongue as being ground zero," says Richter. "Anaerobic bacteria tend to gather in colonies, especially at the back of the tongue. That's where they need to be eliminated." Tom was told to gently scrape his tongue twice each day, paying particular attention to the back third. Dentists have found that doing this with an appliance available in any drugstore is much more effective than brushing alone. In fact, researchers at the University of Toronto Halitosis Clinic found that it slashed sulfur compounds by 75 percent, while brushing reduced them by just 25 percent. "When it comes to treating bad breath causes, most people don't bother with their tongues," says dentist Julian Geller. "I tell patients to watch for a thick, white coating on their tongues, and to reach far back with the scraper." Parsley capsules, mouthwashes, sprays and mints add up to a hefty half-billion dollars in annual U.S. sales, but guys with serious breath problems will find them a short-term solution at best.
For them, a proper hygiene program is well worth the extra effort and expense.
Drew Voight
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