PEOPLE who suffer from bad breath may lack 鈥済ood bacteria鈥� that keep foul-smelling microorganisms at bay. The finding raises the prospect that halitosis could be treated with a pro-biotic rather than an antibacterial agent.
Bruce Paster and colleagues from the Forsyth Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, used gene sequencing to identify 92 strains of bug that live on people鈥檚 tongues, 29 of which were previously unknown. People suffering from halitosis, defined as having a high level of sulphurous chemicals in their breath, lacked the three bacterial strains most common in sweet-smelling mouths, and instead harboured a host of new bugs. The explanation is likely to lie in how the bugs compete and bind to the tongue, says Paster.