Call it bad breath or halitosis; it's an acutely unpleasant situation that's the real reason for embarrassment. Many of us with bad breath aren't even aware there's a real problem.

The sad fact is, we can’t easily tell whether or not we have bad breath ourselves, due to something called “habituation” - the body’s way of adjusting to whatever odors or tastes are present.

Instead, it’s the people we spend time with - our families and coworkers - who can most easily and accurately identify unpleasant odors emanating from our mouths. The degree of one’s bad breath isn’t going to be the same from day to day, either; it largely depends on both the dryness of the mouth and the number of residual toxins there.

In a way, it seems odd. As everyone’s noticed at one point or other, babies never brush their teeth. And yet babies usually don’t have any kind of unpleasant odor coming from their mouth. In fact, the breath of babies is naturally sweet - at least most of the time. Even so, some small children and even a few babies have been known to suffer from bad breath.

1. Approximately a quarter of the world’s population suffers from regular (or chronic) bad breath.

2. More than half of adults wake up to bad breath in the morning.