Does my breath stink?



You don't smoke, you have routine good mouth hygiene, but you just can't get rid of your bad breath? What can you do?

One of the top reasons for Halitosis, or bad smelling breath, after lack of mouth hygiene or health issues in your digestive tract, is one of the most common yet easy to remedy causes. It is the result of a common bacteria that if allowed to thrive, robs you of a sweet smelling breath.

Helicobacter pylori, is a microaerophilic bacterium usually found in the stomach if you want to geek out on it. We are almost all exposed to the bacteria in childhood. Many of us don't know we have become host to it and don't develop infection! If you are a gut health enthusiast, we don't need to tell you that each of us is host to a diverse community of microbiotica living the microbiome realm in your stomach and surrounds; they are there to keep you balanced from plate to colon and beyond. Your microbiome will fit your environment perfectly if balanced and is unique to everyone else’s. Most importantly, if balanced, it is your best defence against most kinds of infection and inflammation.

What causes h. pylori to thrive in your gut and causes bad breath is when your gut microbes go out of balance. Maybe you eat too many sweets with E176 in (notorious for disturbing gut balance) or maybe you have become sensitive to genetically modified foods causing inflammation and leaky gut, maybe you wiped out you gut microbiome with a long coarse of antibiotics after an operation that got infected. So, what now? How do you bet the balance right?  

If you’ve never introduced your gut to the pleasure of a cultured beverage that comes with colonies of healthy bacteria, then today your life is about to change. The selection of foods that are available to help you keep a balance in your gut has grown as more people become aware that fermented foods have superpowers. One of these foods are a super drink called kefir.  Having balanced gut bacteria is a fast track to multiple health benefits, starting with balancing your microbiome for a fresh breath.

In a documented entry at Natural Medical Journal .com the journal reported that "Kefir significantly improved ...eradication of H. pylori. Infection was eradicated in more than three-quarters of those patients drinking kefir (36 of 46 [78.2%]), compared with only half of those who received antibiotics plus placebo (18 of 36 [50.0%])..." Read the journal entry here. The paper of January 2011 reported Kefir worked to combat h. pylori from thriving in the gut because kefir has a stable production of lactic acid bacteria and yeast. While yoghurt is fermented from a variety of lactic acid bacteria’s, if at all in mainstream products, yogurt cultures do not contain yeast.

So next time you go to add a bucket of breath freshening gum to your shopping list, try adding a bottle of flavoured water kefir instead. You just need half a glass a day to start enjoying the benefits of fresh smelling breath!

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Written by Viv Brown

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