8 non-dental causes of bad breath
Chronic bad breath is a sign of poor oral hygiene and dental diseases. Meanwhile, it can be a red flag indicating the serious illnesses progressing inside your body.
About 90% of bad breath (clinically called Halitosis) associated with oral problems and it typically smells like rotten eggs. The remaining proportion has been linked to certain amiss in your body. The type of smell emitting in your bad breath helps to detect the dilemma in your body.
Here is a list of the odors provoked by chronic diseases and malapropos medical conditions.
Table of Contents
1) Sweet or Fruity Smell
Unmanaged sugar in blood provokes fruity breath. As you know, diabetes happens with the inadequate production of insulin hormone. Moreover, our body can’t use glucose for energy due to the blood sugar levels rise.
It pushes our body to break down fat for energy, leading to produce ketones which smells sweet. Hence this foul breath is known as sweet or fruity breath. As fat breaks down to produce ketones, it is also called “Ketone Breath”.
2) Garbage or Corpse Smell
It indicates liver diseases or liver failure. When our liver becomes weak or inefficient, it cannot discharge the waste products processed by the liver. Moreover, it affects other liver functionalities like detoxification, protein synthesis, etc.
This eventually leads to producing dimethyl sulfide which emits a musty, corpse-like aroma.
3) Acidic Smell
Indigestion problems and Acid Reflux diseases like GERD (Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease) is the main reason behind the sour or acidic breath.
GERD is a condition when the muscle at the end of the esophagus does not close properly. It makes the acid and other contents in the stomach move back to the esophagus, throat and mouth. Such partially digested foods make your breath smells sour.
4) Smells like a dirty diaper
Rotten odor breath that smells like pee is a foretoken indicating the advanced stage of kidney diseases. When our kidney is unable to filter the blood, our body gets filled with water and the waste products after digestion cannot be excreted. This condition is called uremia.
People suffering from uremia (kidney failure) encounter swelling in their muscles and their breath smells like a dirty diaper.
5) Rotten meat smell
Mucus deposition in the lungs causes your breath to smell like rotten meat.
This filthy smell due to mucus build-up happens with a condition called Bronchiticctasis. It is a chronic inflammatory disease that enlarges permanent airways in the lungs and develops problems like tuberculosis, chest pain, shortness of breath, and much more.
6) Boiled Cabbage odor
Hypermethioninemia – A genetic disorder that makes our body unable to process amino acid methionine. Few people suffering from this disease develop intellectual disability whilst it shows no symptom of infection except causing boiled cabbage smell in their breath and urine.
7) Feces smelling breath
Similar to the acidic smell, it is also linked with digestion problems irked with blockages in the intestines. Such intestinal blockage obstructs the flow of waste products and problems in the bowel like constipation and much more. It is identified with symptoms like vomiting, nausea along with emitting breath smells like poop.
8) Nail Polish Remover Smell
It happens for people who follow a low carb diet like paleo. As they consume low carbohydrates, their body breaks down fats instead of carbohydrates for energy. It produces acetone which has the same base material found in nail polish removers.
Bottom line
Halitosis is an annoying thing and it can be provoked with problems in our health as well as mouth. To be precise, the mouth-body connection has provided us extra-oral sources of bad breath which helps you to diagnose the underlying health illnesses with the help of a dentist.
