Bad Breath with Dieting?

Helpful information about how you may notice an increase in bad breath with your new weight loss program.

Bad Breath and Low Carbs
MSN Health/WebMD

Low-carb diets may be good for your waistline, but you might not be able to say the same for your breath.

Low-carb lifestyle junkies are more likely to suffer from a seldom discussed side effect of such diets — halitosis, aka bad breath. And since more than 25 million people say they have tried the Atkins diet (not to mention other low-carb eating plans), according to the National Marketing Institute, bad breath may be an epidemic!

Bad breath in the low/no-carb sect is often caused by certain chemicals that are released in the breath as the body burns fat. They are called ketones, and entering into a fat-burning state of ketosis is the hallmark of the Atkins diet. So the good news is that if your breath stinks, you’re probably doing a good job of sticking to that low-carb diet.

“Carbohydrates aren’t readily available, so you start to use other fats and proteins as your source of energy, and as a result you are going to get a breath problem,” explains Kenneth Burrell, DDS, the senior director of the council on scientific affairs of the American Dental Association. http://www.dentistdirectory.com/topic_badbreath.asp