July 01, 2010

Why Do People Have Morning Breath?

The answer is actually pretty straight-forward... The human mouth is actually considered one of the dirtiest mouths among animals. In fact the human mouth contains so much bacteria, a human bite is considered more "dangerous" from an infection standpoint that a bite from a dog.

During the day, we constantly swallow and eat/drink which washes away the bulk of the bacteria. We also brush our teeth and gargle our mouths which also helps.

Unfortunately, during the night, none of these activities occur which allow bacteria to proliferate and produce the smells associated with bad breath.

What makes this situation worse is that you can only smell other peoples' bad breath and not your own. Why is that? It's because our sense of smell becomes desensitized to smells that's around continuously.

In other words, if you smell someone's bad morning breath for a long enough period of time, you will no longer smell it!

Read more about morning breath in the Washington Post here.
Fauquier blog
Fauquier ENT

Dr. Christopher Chang is a private practice otolaryngology, head & neck surgeon specializing in the treatment of problems related to the ear, nose, and throat. Located in Warrenton, VA about 45 minutes west of Washington DC, he also provides inhalant allergy testing/treatment, hearing tests, and dispenses hearing aids.


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