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What's Up Docs?

Daily Dose: Fresh Breath

What's Up Docs?

BBC

Health & Fitness, Nature, Science

4.4659 Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2026

⏱️ 5 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this Daily Dose, Drs Chris and Xand return to their episode on fresh breath with Dr Praveen Sharma. Praveen walked the docs through the best way to take care of our teeth and how we should be thinking about our oral health.

Daily Doses of expert wisdom from previous episodes will be dropping each weekday throughout January (except Tuesdays). You'll find them in the What’s Up Docs? feed on BBC Sounds, alongside all the main episodes of the podcast.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

0:05.0

Zandi, how's your breath? I remember Dolly was complaining about it.

0:09.2

Well, I'm very lucky that I have a wife that will tell me when my breath is not acceptable,

0:14.5

although I don't always respond well to the feedback.

0:17.1

I have to admit, the holiday season, I've got a new baby,

0:20.7

am I always paying attention to my

0:23.1

oral hygiene? I could maybe use a bit of a reminder. As someone who spends several hours a

0:28.8

week sitting in a confined space with you, I think you could use a little reminder.

0:37.2

Well, Chris, it's the last week in January, which means the last week of our daily dose offerings. That's right. We've dropped in these daily doses throughout January. I have to say it's felt a bit Mary Poppins of us. Some of our favourite things. Wrong movie. Spoonfuls of sugar. Brown paper package. No, that's... Brown paper packages. Is... Oh, am I wrong about brown paper packages? That's her favorite things. That's not the spoonfuls of sugar. You don't put sugar in a brown paper package. Whatever movie we're talking about, Zand, it's been absolutely super. Califragulistic. Today, we are going to be revisiting a master class from the wonderful Praveen Sharma, who gave us a new way of thinking about

1:12.4

oral health and fresh breath.

1:15.8

Do you mind walking us through, you know, the gold standard tooth and gum care regime?

1:23.3

Okay.

1:23.7

How do I begin?

1:24.5

So to start off with, you'll need to find time to do this. And that's, you know, it seems like a really obvious thing to say. Okay. How do I begin? So to start off with, you'll need to find time to do this. And that's, you know, it seems like a really obvious thing to say. But what you don't want to be doing is brushing your teeth or cleaning your teeth while you're doing other things. So you don't be walking around sort of absentmindedly brushing. You need your space. You need your mirror. You need to be standing in front of it, you need to be

1:44.5

present in what you're doing. So this is almost like the philosophy of toothbrushing. It's like you must be present. Yeah, I didn't think it would be so, so meditative. It's like prayer. It's like a reverie. Oh, I love that. Okay, so be present. It's part, it's a ritual. It's part of your day. So if you can find that time in the morning, then do it in the morning.

2:02.0

If you can find that time in the evening, then do it in the evening.

2:04.6

Don't rush it twice a day and think you're rushing twice a day. So if it's better to do it once a day and well rather than twice a day and not well. And if it's all the same, then doing it in the evening is the better time to do it. You know, your saliva flow decreasing when you go to sleep, bacteria hanging around a lot more. So if you can disrupt that at the start before you go to bed, then they'll do less damage overnight. Proven, should we be brushing twice a day, ideally, if you can find the time? If you can find the time twice a day, yes.

3:10.2

Two minutes twice a day. Sorry, just for clarity's sake, then when I say brushing, I mean brushing and cleaning in between the teeth. Okay. So I'm clubbing those two together for this exercise. Can I say, first of all, this is one-nill to my wife, Dolly, because she pays attention to the timer on the toothbrush. she's absolutely fastidious about it. And I'm like, that's just a general guide. Why are you letting the people at the toothbrush company run your life? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm like, you're living in the Terminators. Anyway, that's good. One nil to Dolly. There's also this thing about whether you should brush before or after you have your breakfast. And ultimately, for most people, it just ends up being a preference.

3:13.6

Ideally, you should brush before you have your breakfast.

3:16.1

You don't want to be brushing after you've had something acidic. So it's going to have a softening effect on the mineral substance of the tooth, the enamel and the dentine.

3:23.2

If you prefer to brush after you've

3:25.6

had your breakfast, then you should leave some time off, bitten between your breakfast and brushing

...

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