According to the American Dental Association, about 50% of American adults suffer from oral malodder,

with prevalence rates around the world ranging from 2% to nearly 80%.

On average, it seems to be about one in three of us on the planet Earth have bad breath.

What effect might stress have on the smell of our breath?

Stress students were found to have significantly higher levels of the rotten egg gas hydrogen sulfide,

which is one of the main volatile sulfur compounds related to bad breath, originated from the degradation of the

sulfur-containing amino acid cysteine, found concentrated in animal proteins like meat and dairy.

Were they eating different diets or just too busy to brush?

The simplest explanation is just the dry mouth you get when you're super stressed,

part of our fight or flight response.

It's the same reason we get morning breath because we have decreased saliva production

when we sleep that would otherwise self-clean the mouth, keeping it from becoming

like a stagnant pond.

Though maybe stress hormones are having an effect as well?

We suspect sex hormones may play a role, since though men and women have the same

before and after rise and bad breath compounds after a stressful situation, women seem to

start out with higher baseline levels. Gender appears to play an important role.

Women have significantly worse morning breath, for example, and bad breath is affected by the

menstrual cycle. In fact, that's listed as one of the causes, so-called menstrual breath.

As you can see, there are higher levels of bad breath compounds in the mouths of women in the premenstrual

and menstrual phases compared not just to men, but the follicular phase of their own cycle,

meaning like the first half before ovulation.

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