Could H. Pylori, Ulcer Baddie, be a Bad Breath Villian Too?

Ever wonder why some people seem to have fresh breath with a lick-and-a-promise approach to dental care? (After all, who actually flosses every night? Statistics show the answer is: not many of us.)

For other people, keeping things fresh — or even tolerable — involves a lot more labor.

Right now, it seems pretty common to hand out blame for poor oral hygiene. And in fact, it’s true that there are many things you can do to reduce unwanted bacteria in your mouth that most of us avoid. Tongue scraping or brushing, for example. And appropriate rinses or mouthwashes specifically formulated for combating chronic bad breath (not the usual drugstore kind).

But isn’t it curious that some people are forced to hold their hygiene practice to a far higher standard, often with poorer results than they’d hoped for? Is it simply that they don’t brush correctly, or often enough?

It turns out that possibly, one of the stealth causes of bad breath could be a bacteria known as H. pylori. H. pylori rose to fame several years ago as a leading cause of ulcers. Prior to the discovery of its role, people who suffered from peptic or duodenal ulcers were kindly told to rest up, or stop eating at Mexican or Indian restaurants. This advice turned out to be useless, since it was really H. pylori burrowing deep into their gastric mucousal lining that caused the suffering.

Perhaps history is repeating itself. Recent studies have shown that H. pylori can live in the mouth, not just the stomach. And some studies show a marked correlation between some people’s halitosis — and even periodontal disease — and an oral H. pylori infection.

This is not to say that science suggests that every case of bad breath is caused by gastric bacteria. It’s simply too early to tell what role H. pylori might play for chronic bad breath sufferers as a whole.

Still, the development bears watching — and bodes well for people struggling with this problem. While the “triple therapy” for H. pylori is intense, and not something to go into casually, a few studies have suggested that resin-based mastic gum can help reduce populations of H. pylori and S. mutans — another nefarious tooth-decay causing bacteria — both in the mouth and the stomach. (See “A pilot study on antiplaque effects of mastic chewing gum in the oral cavity” at National Instititutes for Health.) It’s a gentler approach that might be worth a try.