November 2, 2019 • 34 mins
Occasional bad breath is one thing, halitosis is another. Or is it? From its odd origins as a marketing ploy to modern weight loss diets that can induce this embarrassing condition, you can learn all about bad breath in this classic episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Good morning everyone. I hope you've brushed your teeth, because
if not, you may have stinky breath. And this is
not about stinky breath from not brushing your teeth. This
is about halitosis, which is a real thing and people
that are afflicted with it. I can't help it. It's
really kind of sad. So from a please listen to
halitosis colon Worst Smell Ever. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
(00:27):
a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
Chuck Bry. Do you realize that some people might this
(00:48):
might be the first episode they listened to and they've
already turned it off and they're writing an iTunes review?
Something's wrong with that? Guy? Yeah, let's hope with the manga,
I can't believe there is so popular? How does anyone
listen to him? Yeah? What's up with the Yeah? And
how are they in the top ten? And I guy,
(01:11):
it must be like the a MSR thing. What is that?
You know where that people make videos where they're like
stroking your hair, but it's really they're just moving their
hand by the camera. They're talking like this and what
really wet and calming. But there's a subset of humans
who have a central nervous reaction. I just had one,
(01:35):
but it's pleasurable. They call him like a brain orgasm,
a a M s R. I think is R a
s R. I think it's a M s R. I
don't remember what it stands for. But it's like a
meditative video type of thing. I guess to some people.
Apparently you have like a reaction to it, and it's
very pleasurable, but it's non sexual. It's it's well when
(01:58):
you just whisper neurological. To me, I had a bad right,
I can imagine, so I I don't claim to be
one of those people. Man, oh man, this is getting
off to a good start. But we should do an
episode on that sometime. We people have requested it a
few times. Yeah, I want to. I'm gonna go find
out what it is we have to go to the
trouble of writing an article for because there's not one
that's okay. I got a feel of those in the
(02:18):
hopper that I'd like to do. I do too, I
just haven't been able to get around to him. You've
been lazy, No, I've been busy, I said, we are
you ready? Are you familiar with halitosis? With with hold,
I've got a little intro for this. You've heard the
word halitosi is obviously yes, We're about to do an
episode on halitosis, so I hope. So, but even before this,
(02:41):
you've heard the word halitosis bad breath. It's like a
clinical term for bad breath. And that is true, and
it always was a clinical term for bad breath. But
the reason, Chuck, that you and I know that the
word halitosis means bad breath is thanks to a nice
little marketing scheme by the three guys who ran the
company that made listerine back in the nineteen twenties. Yeah.
(03:04):
We we've talked about Dr Jodgeph lister before and that
listerine was an antiseptic, surgical antiseptic, yes, and that's and
it was marketed as a surgical antiseptic and then a
household antiseptic. And then they said, you know what we're
we need to expand our market share, so let's get
into other markets. And so they said mouthwash. We'll start
telling people use it as mouthwash. And they made like
(03:26):
their office in turn put some in his mouth, swish
it around. He died. So they went and reformulated it
a little bit at a little water, right uh, and
then bang boom, they had listering the mouthwash. The problem was,
as they said, well, nobody's going to just start using
a mouthwash for no good reason. We have to appeal
to their low self esteem. And that's what they did
(03:50):
by looking through a medical dictionary, finding the word halitosies
and saying that's it. Yeah, it's an age old trick
and ads is to prey upon your how bad you
feel about yourself on a daily basis, and especially using
a medical jargon. Michief who called called it the medical gaze,
(04:10):
where it was basically like, if you add something that
sounds medically to a problem that your product can can
take care of you, you've got gangbusters right there. Yeah.
And it was an archaic term, Latin term that had
gone away completely. Yeah. It comes from the Latin halitus
for breath and the Greek suffix osis, which is used
(04:32):
to indicate abnormality or a disease state. Yea, but prelistering
and people weren't walking around saying the word halitosis. It
had gone the way of the dodo as a word. No,
And even still it was kind of like people weren't
really doing a lot to take care of their breath anyway.
It wasn't a thing until this group from the Listering
Company said we're gonna make it a thing, and we're
(04:52):
gonna make using mouthwash to combat this thing a thing,
and they did within a decade. It was just basically like,
that's what you did, you mouthwash every morning? Yeah, and
they I thought it was pretty funny. And where'd you
get that? Cracked? Yeah? Cracked? Yeah, it was a great
article and they said They went on to use other
words in advertising later on, like homatosis, which is if
(05:13):
you didn't have a tract of furniture, and uh, bromodosis
if you had smelly feet. Yeah, And I don't think
those they didn't catch on as well, not like halitosis.
For some reason, halitosis did catch on, and as a result,
there are people out there who have haldophobia. I'm one
of them. Oh yeah, not like I don't need to
(05:34):
see a shrink, but um, my first girlfriend had halitosis. Yeah,
And I think I can say that because I don't
think she listens and I don't think she knows she
was my first girlfriend. Like I never said you're my
first girlfriend, right, But yeah, she had bad and I
say halitosis to me, there's a difference between everyone gets
(05:55):
bad breath occasionally, but there's a certain tang that's very
identifiable that I call halitosis. And she had it, and I,
you know, I felt like I had to kiss her
and stuff. This is my first girlfriend. I had to
learn how to do that junk. Yeah, man, And it
was I have dreams to this day halitosis kissing dreams.
(06:18):
Do you really that? I like, we'll see something like
gorgeous girl in my dream and I go to kiss
her and she has like this awful rotten breath. Like
it's a recurring dream. So I guess I have heldophobia.
I'm very aware of it and it that's why I
have a tongue scraper and all that junk. Well, apparently
that's one way to treat it. Yeah, we're getting ahead
of ourselves, soap boiler, and I should say I have
(06:39):
had a mild case of heltophobia. It may or may
not have been warranted. I don't know. I have my
own microphone cover for that reason, I know, but it's
not because you're protecting other people from your halitosis. Right,
you don't want your nose and other people's stuff, right, yes, Okay,
because the microphone cover at one point smelled really bad
and I got revolted and I ordered one the next day. Right.
(06:59):
So how how odo phobia refers to your fear of
your bad breath? You fearing other people breath? Yeah, yeah,
that's a different thing then. Okay, Yeah, no, I was
worried I had bad breath. I guess part of me,
like I have that concern because of other people's bad
breath about myself too, though. I think that's why I'm
like manic about brushing my tongue. Oh yeah, that's where
(07:20):
I really got it. I sat next to a movie
I sat next to some dude in a movie theater once,
and like he was facing forward. I always facing forward,
and I almost couldn't sit next to him the whole
time because it was that bad. You should have moved,
I don't know why I didn't. Yeah, let's become my
self punishing, I guess. No. I used to do that,
Like at concerts. I always said that I would just
(07:44):
always the time be next to the most obnoxious drunk place,
and it used to just bother me and get under
my skin. But then I was like, you know what,
I'm just gonna start moving. Yeah, this didn't make me
like I wasn't mad at the guy. Felt horrible for him,
almost to the point where like I I was gonna
in my car and follow him home, and then like
after he got into his house, I was going to
(08:05):
come in after him and then sit him down and
then maybe we'd have like, um, some milk or something,
get him all calmed down, let him sleep, and then
when he woke up the next morning, I'd still be
sitting in his kitchen table. And then I would say
to him, I have something to tell you, And then
I would say, you have really bad breath, man, and
(08:26):
he'd say, no, crap, dude, I have a condition. Well
that's why you don't necessarily want to say anything to anybody,
because they may Yeah, so let's get down to this.
Garlic onions. These are the things that people frequently associate
how It's hostes with, yeah, which is a bunch of bs.
(08:47):
Well no, I mean like it can give you bad breath, yeah,
But that to me, that's the temporary bad breath that
one gets just from food. Yeah. And the reason why
you do get bad breath from, say, like onions in
particulars because garlic, I'm sorry, garlic, it contains something called allison,
which in the stomach is converted to all methyl sulfide,
which is not metabolized and which comes back up as
(09:09):
gas from your gut. So when you have bad breath
from onions, it's not onion particles in your mouth still,
that's gas leaking out of your gut into your mouth
and just kind of sticking there for a couple of hours.
You ever take garlic pills, Yeah, it's there they Yeah.
I'd just rather eat garlic any day of the week. Yeah,
(09:29):
I mean I eat tons of garlic. I love it.
But I have taken garlic pills in the past here
and there, and I will forget that I've taken one.
And then you burp up like lasagna, not for breakfast.
But it doesn't taste like good garlic. It tastes softful.
It's medicinal garlic. I didn't find I mean, the pill
didn't taste like anything, but my burps definitely. See it
(09:49):
was for me, I always I just thought it was different,
tasted different. Yeah, I'd just rather like cut the top
off of a whole bulb of garlic, put some olive
oil on it, wrap it and foil, or put it
in your clay garlic baker and put it in the
oven for a little while and show down baby. Yeah.
Just squeeze those things right into your mouth. Good. Yeah,
(10:10):
and it's so good for you. We're in synct today.
Uh so you say you you your bed is that
you don't your garlic and onions don't count to you? Hals, No,
I think there are There is bad breath you can
just have because maybe you forgot to brush, or obviously
morning breath, which we'll get to. And then I think
(10:31):
some people, unfortunately, are have a constant state of uh
this very specific bad breath. Yeah. So I think one
and four people have actual halitosis. Right, that seems a
little high. But maybe people are just doing a good
job of masking it. Maybe so, but some people aren't. So. Um.
(10:55):
What it comes down to, ultimately, chuck. Halitosis is as
simple as the bacteria in our mouth. Yeah, the fact
that we have bacteria. It's the same thing as our armpits.
Why they smell bacteria breaking down stuff from our bodies
beneficially in distincty little gases. Yeah, and giving off little
(11:16):
bacteria too. Yeah. The the the average person has eight
hundred types of bacteria in the mouth, and um, they
don't need like it's a good thing. They don't tell
kids stuff like this growing up in school because fringe
kissing probably wouldn't happen, you know, Well, well then maybe
(11:37):
they should tell kids in school there. But it's really
a kind of a disgusting thing. Like you don't see
people licking armpits. Some people might. Ben Stiller, Yeah, yeah,
what was that in? Was it Ben Stiller who was
into it? Or was it a movie? Right? Yeah, I
seen that flirting with disaster ben still, but I can't
remember if it was Ben Stiller who was into it,
(11:59):
or if it's it was Josh Brolin was into Uh,
Patricia Arquette's armpits, that's right, Okay, Yeah, And Patricia Arquette
was married to Ben Yeah, and she let him look
her armpit in the Love that movie You Can't Catch
the Wind, remember that part? Um, all right, back to
(12:20):
the mouth and how disgusting it is. Uh, they say,
if you magnified just a single cell on the surface
of that tongue. You would see about a hundred types
of bacteria right just on that cell. So this this bacteria.
When you eat and you swallow food after masticating it,
which isn't dirty, it means to uh, you leave little
(12:41):
particles in your mouth. It gets stuck in your teeth there.
Maybe if like you have beginning period donal disease, it
might get stuck in your gums along your teeth a
little bit. The very least, it's gonna get stuck to
the back of your tongue and it just kind of
sits there. And the bacteria in your mouth love this stuff.
It's food to them, and they break it down into
particles and particles and they're like, this is pretty good,
(13:03):
but I can't get the energy from it fully. So
I'm gonna break down the amino acids even further and
then bam. When I do, I'm going to basically emit
sulfur sulfuric gases, and that's where bad breath comes from.
There's sulfuric gases that are again a byproduct of the
uh bacteria eating the food particles in your mouth. Yeah,
(13:25):
leftover proteins, yeah, and it's um. The mouth is a
you know, it's a great breeding ground for it because
it's clammy and warm, and it's just got everything that
the bacteria loves to produce those stinky, stinky smells. Um.
But dry mouth can also cause halitosis because that's what
you get overnight and why you have stinky morning breath,
(13:47):
because your saliva production decreases when you sleep, Otherwise you
just be a drooling mess. Um. I wonder why that
doesn't work during naps on your school desk. I don't know,
you know, I guess because you don't go to sleep
enough be or if like your face is pressing against wood,
it's a signal of your body to increase wake up
the teacher is coming. But chronic dry mouth um is
(14:09):
something that can affect people during the daytime as well.
It's called zero stomia and um. If you have zerostomia,
you're gonna have a harder time fighting your bad breath
because your mouth is always dry. Like the mouth, the
saliva just acts as a natural mouth wash exactly. Not
only renses away like food particles, it rents a way bacteria.
(14:30):
It rents is away the dead skin cells and dead
mouth cells that the bacteria also eat. Um and Yeah,
the dryer it is, the less that action takes place,
and you've got stinky breath. Yeah. So if you're on
anahistamines or um antidepressants or pain killers, uh, dry mouth
is a side effect to some of those drugs, so
(14:51):
you might have a harder time. Uh. And if you're
sick anyway, you're gonna have stinky your breath to Like
if you're fighting a sinus infection. Let's say it's gross,
yes breath, because that mucus trickles back from your sinuses
down to your tongue and sits there, Yeah, and gets
eaten up to nasty stuff. This whole thing. I'm just cringing.
(15:15):
I'm gonna have one of those dreams tonight. There's you
could a sninky hell toasts breath dream. Yes, the hot
girl bad breath. It's always the same. Does Emily know
you're having dreams about kissing hot girls with bad breath? Yeah?
She thinks it's funny. She thinks it's because of my
uh repressed religious upbringing, repress sexuality. Like I won't even
(15:36):
in my dreams allow myself to kiss the model. That's hilarious,
Like she'll have I call it vomit tongue. It's so gross.
Oh yeah, that is pretty bad. Yeah, if they're the
worst dreams, I can't explain to you because they're really
headed in the right direction at first, you know, and
it's terrible. And when you're an old mary man, that's
all you got, I got you, you know, vomit tongue. No,
(15:56):
just you know your dreams. You can't be I know
it to me. I'm just can't be assaulted for having
a dream. I guess you could, but that's not a
very nice wife that give me my dream time. I'm
going to sleep. I'm down to sleep. Let's pull out
with the keyto acidosis. Man. Okay, so chuck. When you
(16:18):
have um, when you eat onions, when you have garlicquen
of food particles, all this stuff that's normal bad breath stuff.
There's also other things, metabolic things often that can give you,
like a a different type of breath. It may or
may not be bad. One bad one is if you
(16:38):
have liver problems, your liver shutting down, you're gonna have
what's called mousey breath. Can you imagine what mousey breath
smells like like? Apparently breath smells like live writhing mice
interesting mousey breath. I can't think of what else it
would denote. I don't know what a mouse smells like.
(16:59):
Uh sure, I mean, have you ever smelled like a
rodent cage? Yeah? But they smell like cedar and poop?
Is that what it smells like? Just what they mean
a cedar? Uh? So? Is keto acidosis the the no
carb effect? Yeah? Okay, Yeah, that is something that will
warn you about if you are trying to attain what's
(17:22):
known as ketosis with like an Atkins type diet um.
Some people, when they are reached that blissful level of
fat burning, it also takes their its toll on their
their mouth and their breath. Yeah, it's like a fruity
acid tony smell. Okay, that sounds better than mousey. Yeah,
it's better. It's gotta be better than Yeah. Yeah, when
(17:43):
you're in ketosis, you when you deprive your body of carbohydrates,
it doesn't have that energy to burn right there, so
it starts turning inward and going after your fat stores.
And when the body burns store fat keytones are what
is released as energy. You're burned his energy and this, Yeah,
it's the smell from burning keytones is what gives you
(18:06):
that fruity breath. Yeah, I've seen websites, you know that
they now have the articles. Of course, if you're if
this is the diet you want, this is how you
can help yourself. And one of the tips that's always
eat bread. It's like, yeah, but that all of a
sudden you're not on that diet more. Yeah, so that's
no solution. Yeah, you can get knocked out of keytoast
is pretty easy, I'm sure. Yeah, I think eating bread
(18:28):
would do it. So let's say you are sadly just
(18:55):
one of those people that just has that funky breath
one in four right, Yeah, if you're among that, it
does seem high. Yeah, I doesn't it. And that's like
chronic calitosis right yeah, where it's not just like you know,
brushing your teeth isn't gonna do the trick. Yeah. Yeah,
(19:17):
that sounds like a fact brought to us by the
Listering company. It might be, but like I said, maybe
um of those people are really trying their hardest so
you don't notice it, gotcha. And other people are just
smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee all day, which is a
bad combination. Yeah, it's pretty bad combination that somehow they
become greater than the sum of their part. Yeah, you know, yeah,
(19:40):
but that's uh, that's breakfast for college students, you know,
coffee and cigarettes. So what do you do if you're
if you're gonna battle this stuff, if it's more than
just something like just a breath mat can handle what's
going to happen here? Well, the breath mat just good
thing to mention that that can provide a little temporary relief,
but it's just masking the underneath. Right, So you're really
(20:01):
not gonna get very far as a solution, no, because
all it's doing is creating the sensation of freshness in
your mouth. Yeah, because it I get I don't know
what breath of mints do have frequently wondered, like what
is like um um mental too? Does that open up
your pores so like the air feels colder and fresher? Oh,
(20:24):
I don't know, like what creates that sensation? You don't know? Yeah,
that sounds like it don't be dumb episode to me,
but I think it might be. Um. What you want
to do is get to the root of the problem,
which is at bacteria and uh, like we said, food
particles in your teeth. Um is a big cause. So
brushing and flossing and the old tongue scraper and brushing
(20:48):
the back of the tongue you scrape the tongue. Doesn't
that make you gag? No, it doesn't bother me. I've
gotten used to it. I mean, you know, occasionally if
I overreach, that might be a little but I'm not
like retching in the back. I remember morning. I think
we should keep a webcam in your bathroom when you're
getting ready, just to catch those times that you do. Yeah,
(21:09):
just make ample vine compilation be hilarious. Uh So attacking
the source of the food particles. And you know, I
have the fake tooth now, so I have to be
extra careful to really brush along there because why I
think it would be like they've made it out of
some new super polymer that like reflects bacteria. Now that
(21:31):
the tooth itself is not the source, but it's um.
You know, where it meets the gum is not a
natural tooth. So I just have to like really brush
the crap out of that area my gum, you know,
get the craft out. I don't use mouthwash that which
is interesting. No, I just toothpaste. Well apparently, um, it's
not necessarily and plenty of mouthwashes a suggestion for this
(21:55):
um specifically types that contain, according to the British Medical Journal,
chloro hexadrine glucinate, chlora hexadrine glucinate or what you want,
because they kill bacteria. I take issue with this. Yeah,
one of the main functions of mouthwash isn't to just
go in and kill bacteria, although most mouthwashers do that. Um,
(22:16):
it's the swishing action loosens food particles and gets them
out from in between your teeth. What I'm saying is
is you don't necessarily need to use a mouthwash that
kills bacteria because you kind of want healthy bacteria. You
want what's called the um uh an oral ecosystem, in
(22:38):
your healthy oral ecosystem or ecology in your mouth uh
you want Remember remember the Poop Shake episode, the poop
Transplant vehical transplant episode, we ended up talking about the
microbiome and how important it is to humanityature, same thing
with our mouth. Yeah, you don't want to kill all
(22:58):
that bacteria now, and there's plenty bacteria that causes problems
like Streptococcus mutans. Is what gives us cavities. But there's
also plenty of beneficial bacteria where you would have a
mouthful of dead skin cells all over your tongue if
it weren't for this helpful bacteria breaking the stuff down.
It's your problem. Everybody wants to kill bacteria. That's not
(23:19):
necessarily a good thing. As a matter of fact, I
think we're learning more and more that it's not a
good thing. So I say avoid the mouthwash that kills
bacteria and just use some sort of mouthwash that maybe
has a minty flavor, but it's just really just swishing
the food particles out and getting rid of the bacteria's
food that's creating their stinky sulfur ducks. Yes, exactly. Um.
(23:44):
And because getting rid of the food is a big
part of it, I would suggest brushing your teeth after
lunch too, you know, like, don't make it just when
you get up and before you go to bed. I say,
go for three times a day. Whoa man who has
time for that? Everybody? Another good trick is to drink
a lot of water. Um. But you know, just keeping
(24:06):
your mouth hydrated daily basis is gonna help you. Said
that saliva is like a natural mouth wash. Water helps
it's it does the same thing, loosens food particles, gets
rid of dead skin cells. And the back of your
tongue apparently is like ground zero for it. Like I
think there's like twenty times more bacteria there than elsewhere
(24:27):
because it's like this bumpy surface that's out of the
way of all this other stuff. So things really stick
and accumulate back there. So that's the that's an area
you want to target, apparently with the tongue scraper. Yeah,
and you could just brush it as well. I do both.
But if you are a grown adult and you're not
either brushing your tongue or using a tongue scraper, then
(24:47):
you're not doing it right, Is that right? Yeah, somebody
needs to teach you. I give a quick part of
a quick you know, brush with with my toothbrush over
my tongue. But I worry about killing taste buds, like
I love tasting things. You're not gonna kill any taste buds.
Sure you can kill taste buds with that. Uh, well,
I haven't killed any, are you sure? Think about what
(25:09):
kind of a super taster you could be without your
scrap No, I do worry about that. I'm kind of like,
I'd rather have low level bad breath and be able
to taste great stuff, then have no bad breath whatsoever
and not be able to taste. I would rather have
no bad breath and still taste everything. Well, yeah, that's
the holy grail. What kind of like flim flam world?
(25:33):
Are you living in it? It's called Chuck's Life. It's nice.
It is nice. If none of this stuff works for you,
you may have a problem, Like you might want to
go see a dentist, uh, and maybe even a doctor. Well, yeah,
the dentist might say, go to the doctor. Yeah, I
go to the doctor, see you you have a mousey breath,
which means your liver shutting down, and find a new dentist.
(25:55):
You know, there's a smell test that they do that
dennists do really Yeah, what they'll do still say, Okay,
this is gonna be gross, but I want you to
breathe through your mouth and I'm going to sniff close
to your mouth. And then they say, okay, now I
want you to breathe through your nose and I'm gonna
sniff close to your nose and they can determine whether
(26:16):
it's a nasal and like a problem in your nasal
cavity that can give you bad breath. You can have
stinking sinuses, so gross, or if it's in your mouth,
and then they can further deduce it like yeah, if
this is the dentist doing this, yeah, and if it's
in your if it's coming through your nose, it suggests
possibly not just your sinuses, but it could be pulmonary
(26:39):
to like you could have some sort of lung problem
that's creating gases that stink and are coming out of
your nose rather than your mouth. So I guess they
train you to do that indental school. Huh. I guess
I could have to. That's not a very popular day,
you know, everybody pair up. Oh my god, there's the
one guy in the corner, like eating a sandwich. It's like,
what can I give a m two more tips? Please
(27:18):
get ten more. If you eat a crunchy breakfast like granola,
cereal or something like that, Okay, it's going to clear
out a lot of the gunk from the night before.
You just want to make sure you get rid of
all those food particles afterwards. And then if you're interested
in a mouth wash that is not antibacterial, really certainly now. Yeah. Uh,
(27:44):
it's you take a half a cup of warm water
and eighth of a teaspoon of cinnamon and one teaspoon
of honey, swirl all together and uh swish it around
and gargle it. That's like um, like old timey mouthwash apparently. Yeah,
and we could probably recommend apple cider vinegar just for anything. Yeah,
(28:05):
that's like the wonder uh, the wonder liquid. It seems like, dude,
I was once on my way to a full blown
kidney or um maybe urinary your urinary infection, some bladder infected.
Something was going on and it was starting to go
downhill fast and muse like drink this and drink a
(28:26):
lot of it. And I started drinking apple cider vinegar
and like raw cranberry juice, like the real cranberry juice.
Um over like about an eight to twelve hour period,
like really hit it and um gone, and like it
was happening, like the happening was going on, and like
I awoarted it. He stopped the happening. I do a
(28:47):
shot every morning now of apple cider vinegar. Yeah, and
don't get just the stuff in this store that you
you should be cooking and cleaning with there's the I
can't remember the brand, but there's the the super potable one,
the one that you think, yeah, the one that that
you'll find it a health food store. Yeah. I can't
remember the name of it, but there's like one brand
(29:08):
that everyone goes to, and it's it's tough. Man. If
you ever just do a straight shot of it without
deluding it, it's hardcore. Yeah. Yeah. Everything I was doing
was taking maybe a shot and then deluding it in
like eight ounces of water, and it's still very difficult. Yeah.
You can do it, though, especially when you're fighting off
some sort of infection. Yeah. And you want to brush
your teeth after that, because vinegar smells gross. Just brush
(29:30):
your teeth all the time. Uh. If you want to
learn more about halitosis, I don't know what more you
could possibly learn, but you can try. You can type
that word into the search part how stuff works dot
Com and it will bring up this article. And since
I said search part's time for a listener. Man, We're
gonna address our April Fools prank officially here with this one. Um.
(29:52):
I want to say, first of all, Josh, you and Ben,
I've was blown away by the performance. Thank you. You
guys sold it so hard, like and we just threw
it together. We were like, hey, let's just try. It
wasn't some big plot. We there's no practice planned for
weeks and weeks like, hey, maybe we should do an
April Fool's joke this year. And I said, hey, maybe
(30:12):
I quit the show and Ben took my place, and
you guys just winged it and like nailed it. Man.
I was sitting here beside you and I felt like
I was watching my own funeral. Yeah. It was weird. Yeah,
you kept going like cut, cut, stop, stop, and we're like, no,
we have to press on. So we're not jokesters typically,
but it was I think it was our only one
to be released on April fools Day. Was the first
(30:33):
time we had the opportunity to release one on April
Fools and look out two years from now, because that'll
be a yeah yeah. But if we do, like Josh
left the show, every would be like no, no, no,
or they'll be expecting that oh yeah, and we'll do
it and they'll be like, well, wait a minute, they
thought that. I would think that, you know, maybe we
could just give you like I don't know, you could
(30:54):
have a heart attack on the show or something. Uh
but anyway, we got an out worrying of people because
I was dead or missing. I know, people really really
reacted to that. Like a lot of people said they
didn't realize how much they needed you until when we're gone.
And yeah, there were plenty of people who said, like, Josh,
(31:15):
if it had been you, I would have felt the
same way. But um well I got to play the martyr.
I got the plumb roll. It was nice. It's like
I got a head to do nothing and just get
showered with actulation. But it was it was very neat
to see, like people were like, never leave, don't ever
do that again, and it was pretty cool. Actually. Yeah.
And also I want to say on behalf of Ben,
he asked us to to let everybody know whenever we
could that he actually was purposefully sounding terrible what he
(31:39):
was doing. He like that was play acting. Yeah. Yeah,
the whole point was like we wanted it to be
super awkward, right, I think you guys achieved that. Okay,
So so go ahead, back from the dead, Chuck. So
just from Matt from Athens, Georgia. Uh go dogs, Hey, guys,
my girlfriend I had been listeners For years, I didn't
realize just sound important to the show was to us.
So until your April fools Day show. I had listened
(32:00):
to the episode before she did, and he didn't even
tell her. That's kind of mean. And I was keen
on setting her up for the gag, so I sat
it down in the kitchen table and told her that, uh,
stuff you should know at some big news. I knew
she'd be sucked into the prank, but was not prepared
for what happened next. She started to cry and denounced
the show with one of you gone, saying she would
stop listening. She was worried about Chuck. I even have
(32:23):
people are worried about Emily. They were like they thought
Emily was in the hospital. U Chuck started um. She
said she would stop listening and was worried about Chuck
and started tossing out possible explanations like the best of
conspiracy theorists. She was so sad that I had to
fast forward to the reveal. After her surprising yet pretty
(32:43):
cute reaction, I was hoping to swap out her emotional
connection for a birthday shout out. She's a contemporary dancer
and uses the ideas in your podcast and her classes
in choreography. I think dances about Alan turning. I gotta
see this. Yeah, it's crazy. I admit this pretty crass
way of getting a happy birthday, but I think it's
worth a shot. So, Matt, you didn't tell us your
(33:05):
girlfriend's name, So we're just gonna say happy birthday to
Matt's girlfriend from Athens. Happy birthday Matt's girlfriend. I'm gonna
guess to Jennifer Matt enjoy sleeping on the couch this evening.
You know, we fooled some of our friends. Even Joe
and Dazzo texted me and said, you guys actually fooled
me for about eight seconds. Is that right? Yeah? Yeah,
we got a lot of people who said, like, I
didn't fall for anything all day, and the only people
(33:28):
who got me the stuff, you should know, it's because
you guys like destroyed it. And then the one me
for a minute I thought I was off the show
to us have to leave. Yeah, the ones that I
felt bad about though, we're the ones who listened to
it like after April one. Yeah yeah, and we're like Australia. Yeah,
and they didn't realize it was the it was yeah exactly.
But yes, so everyone, thank you very much for the
(33:49):
outpouring of emotion. We both feel very loved. Yeah, it's
it's sure. I mean, we know people like the show,
but when you hear stuff like that, it's like a
wild people gonna depend on this, and uh, we know
now that we're not allowed to ever leave. Now, it's
well go out in a murder suicide if anything. Cool. Agreed.
So if you guys love us so much, you can
(34:11):
hang out with us outside of the podcast too on
social media. We're on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter. Just search
Stuff you Should Know s Y s K, Josh and
Chuck and any of those and it will bring us
up and you will love it. And if you want
to send an email to Chuck, Jerry and me, you
can address it to Stuff podcast at how stuff works
dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
(34:35):
iHeart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my
heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Good morning everyone. I hope you've brushed your teeth, because
if not, you may have stinky breath. And this is
not about stinky breath from not brushing your teeth. This
is about halitosis, which is a real thing and people
that are afflicted with it. I can't help it. It's
really kind of sad. So from a please listen to
halitosis colon Worst Smell Ever. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
(00:27):
a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
Chuck Bry. Do you realize that some people might this
(00:48):
might be the first episode they listened to and they've
already turned it off and they're writing an iTunes review?
Something's wrong with that? Guy? Yeah, let's hope with the manga,
I can't believe there is so popular? How does anyone
listen to him? Yeah? What's up with the Yeah? And
how are they in the top ten? And I guy,
(01:11):
it must be like the a MSR thing. What is that?
You know where that people make videos where they're like
stroking your hair, but it's really they're just moving their
hand by the camera. They're talking like this and what
really wet and calming. But there's a subset of humans
who have a central nervous reaction. I just had one,
(01:35):
but it's pleasurable. They call him like a brain orgasm,
a a M s R. I think is R a
s R. I think it's a M s R. I
don't remember what it stands for. But it's like a
meditative video type of thing. I guess to some people.
Apparently you have like a reaction to it, and it's
very pleasurable, but it's non sexual. It's it's well when
(01:58):
you just whisper neurological. To me, I had a bad right,
I can imagine, so I I don't claim to be
one of those people. Man, oh man, this is getting
off to a good start. But we should do an
episode on that sometime. We people have requested it a
few times. Yeah, I want to. I'm gonna go find
out what it is we have to go to the
trouble of writing an article for because there's not one
that's okay. I got a feel of those in the
(02:18):
hopper that I'd like to do. I do too, I
just haven't been able to get around to him. You've
been lazy, No, I've been busy, I said, we are
you ready? Are you familiar with halitosis? With with hold,
I've got a little intro for this. You've heard the
word halitosi is obviously yes, We're about to do an
episode on halitosis, so I hope. So, but even before this,
(02:41):
you've heard the word halitosis bad breath. It's like a
clinical term for bad breath. And that is true, and
it always was a clinical term for bad breath. But
the reason, Chuck, that you and I know that the
word halitosis means bad breath is thanks to a nice
little marketing scheme by the three guys who ran the
company that made listerine back in the nineteen twenties. Yeah.
(03:04):
We we've talked about Dr Jodgeph lister before and that
listerine was an antiseptic, surgical antiseptic, yes, and that's and
it was marketed as a surgical antiseptic and then a
household antiseptic. And then they said, you know what we're
we need to expand our market share, so let's get
into other markets. And so they said mouthwash. We'll start
telling people use it as mouthwash. And they made like
(03:26):
their office in turn put some in his mouth, swish
it around. He died. So they went and reformulated it
a little bit at a little water, right uh, and
then bang boom, they had listering the mouthwash. The problem was,
as they said, well, nobody's going to just start using
a mouthwash for no good reason. We have to appeal
to their low self esteem. And that's what they did
(03:50):
by looking through a medical dictionary, finding the word halitosies
and saying that's it. Yeah, it's an age old trick
and ads is to prey upon your how bad you
feel about yourself on a daily basis, and especially using
a medical jargon. Michief who called called it the medical gaze,
(04:10):
where it was basically like, if you add something that
sounds medically to a problem that your product can can
take care of you, you've got gangbusters right there. Yeah.
And it was an archaic term, Latin term that had
gone away completely. Yeah. It comes from the Latin halitus
for breath and the Greek suffix osis, which is used
(04:32):
to indicate abnormality or a disease state. Yea, but prelistering
and people weren't walking around saying the word halitosis. It
had gone the way of the dodo as a word. No,
And even still it was kind of like people weren't
really doing a lot to take care of their breath anyway.
It wasn't a thing until this group from the Listering
Company said we're gonna make it a thing, and we're
(04:52):
gonna make using mouthwash to combat this thing a thing,
and they did within a decade. It was just basically like,
that's what you did, you mouthwash every morning? Yeah, and
they I thought it was pretty funny. And where'd you
get that? Cracked? Yeah? Cracked? Yeah, it was a great
article and they said They went on to use other
words in advertising later on, like homatosis, which is if
(05:13):
you didn't have a tract of furniture, and uh, bromodosis
if you had smelly feet. Yeah, And I don't think
those they didn't catch on as well, not like halitosis.
For some reason, halitosis did catch on, and as a result,
there are people out there who have haldophobia. I'm one
of them. Oh yeah, not like I don't need to
(05:34):
see a shrink, but um, my first girlfriend had halitosis. Yeah,
And I think I can say that because I don't
think she listens and I don't think she knows she
was my first girlfriend. Like I never said you're my
first girlfriend, right, But yeah, she had bad and I
say halitosis to me, there's a difference between everyone gets
(05:55):
bad breath occasionally, but there's a certain tang that's very
identifiable that I call halitosis. And she had it, and I,
you know, I felt like I had to kiss her
and stuff. This is my first girlfriend. I had to
learn how to do that junk. Yeah, man, And it
was I have dreams to this day halitosis kissing dreams.
(06:18):
Do you really that? I like, we'll see something like
gorgeous girl in my dream and I go to kiss
her and she has like this awful rotten breath. Like
it's a recurring dream. So I guess I have heldophobia.
I'm very aware of it and it that's why I
have a tongue scraper and all that junk. Well, apparently
that's one way to treat it. Yeah, we're getting ahead
of ourselves, soap boiler, and I should say I have
(06:39):
had a mild case of heltophobia. It may or may
not have been warranted. I don't know. I have my
own microphone cover for that reason, I know, but it's
not because you're protecting other people from your halitosis. Right,
you don't want your nose and other people's stuff, right, yes, Okay,
because the microphone cover at one point smelled really bad
and I got revolted and I ordered one the next day. Right.
(06:59):
So how how odo phobia refers to your fear of
your bad breath? You fearing other people breath? Yeah, yeah,
that's a different thing then. Okay, Yeah, no, I was
worried I had bad breath. I guess part of me,
like I have that concern because of other people's bad
breath about myself too, though. I think that's why I'm
like manic about brushing my tongue. Oh yeah, that's where
(07:20):
I really got it. I sat next to a movie
I sat next to some dude in a movie theater once,
and like he was facing forward. I always facing forward,
and I almost couldn't sit next to him the whole
time because it was that bad. You should have moved,
I don't know why I didn't. Yeah, let's become my
self punishing, I guess. No. I used to do that,
Like at concerts. I always said that I would just
(07:44):
always the time be next to the most obnoxious drunk place,
and it used to just bother me and get under
my skin. But then I was like, you know what,
I'm just gonna start moving. Yeah, this didn't make me
like I wasn't mad at the guy. Felt horrible for him,
almost to the point where like I I was gonna
in my car and follow him home, and then like
after he got into his house, I was going to
(08:05):
come in after him and then sit him down and
then maybe we'd have like, um, some milk or something,
get him all calmed down, let him sleep, and then
when he woke up the next morning, I'd still be
sitting in his kitchen table. And then I would say
to him, I have something to tell you, And then
I would say, you have really bad breath, man, and
(08:26):
he'd say, no, crap, dude, I have a condition. Well
that's why you don't necessarily want to say anything to anybody,
because they may Yeah, so let's get down to this.
Garlic onions. These are the things that people frequently associate
how It's hostes with, yeah, which is a bunch of bs.
(08:47):
Well no, I mean like it can give you bad breath, yeah,
But that to me, that's the temporary bad breath that
one gets just from food. Yeah. And the reason why
you do get bad breath from, say, like onions in
particulars because garlic, I'm sorry, garlic, it contains something called allison,
which in the stomach is converted to all methyl sulfide,
which is not metabolized and which comes back up as
(09:09):
gas from your gut. So when you have bad breath
from onions, it's not onion particles in your mouth still,
that's gas leaking out of your gut into your mouth
and just kind of sticking there for a couple of hours.
You ever take garlic pills, Yeah, it's there they Yeah.
I'd just rather eat garlic any day of the week. Yeah,
(09:29):
I mean I eat tons of garlic. I love it.
But I have taken garlic pills in the past here
and there, and I will forget that I've taken one.
And then you burp up like lasagna, not for breakfast.
But it doesn't taste like good garlic. It tastes softful.
It's medicinal garlic. I didn't find I mean, the pill
didn't taste like anything, but my burps definitely. See it
(09:49):
was for me, I always I just thought it was different,
tasted different. Yeah, I'd just rather like cut the top
off of a whole bulb of garlic, put some olive
oil on it, wrap it and foil, or put it
in your clay garlic baker and put it in the
oven for a little while and show down baby. Yeah.
Just squeeze those things right into your mouth. Good. Yeah,
(10:10):
and it's so good for you. We're in synct today.
Uh so you say you you your bed is that
you don't your garlic and onions don't count to you? Hals, No,
I think there are There is bad breath you can
just have because maybe you forgot to brush, or obviously
morning breath, which we'll get to. And then I think
(10:31):
some people, unfortunately, are have a constant state of uh
this very specific bad breath. Yeah. So I think one
and four people have actual halitosis. Right, that seems a
little high. But maybe people are just doing a good
job of masking it. Maybe so, but some people aren't. So. Um.
(10:55):
What it comes down to, ultimately, chuck. Halitosis is as
simple as the bacteria in our mouth. Yeah, the fact
that we have bacteria. It's the same thing as our armpits.
Why they smell bacteria breaking down stuff from our bodies
beneficially in distincty little gases. Yeah, and giving off little
(11:16):
bacteria too. Yeah. The the the average person has eight
hundred types of bacteria in the mouth, and um, they
don't need like it's a good thing. They don't tell
kids stuff like this growing up in school because fringe
kissing probably wouldn't happen, you know, Well, well then maybe
(11:37):
they should tell kids in school there. But it's really
a kind of a disgusting thing. Like you don't see
people licking armpits. Some people might. Ben Stiller, Yeah, yeah,
what was that in? Was it Ben Stiller who was
into it? Or was it a movie? Right? Yeah, I
seen that flirting with disaster ben still, but I can't
remember if it was Ben Stiller who was into it,
(11:59):
or if it's it was Josh Brolin was into Uh,
Patricia Arquette's armpits, that's right, Okay, Yeah, And Patricia Arquette
was married to Ben Yeah, and she let him look
her armpit in the Love that movie You Can't Catch
the Wind, remember that part? Um, all right, back to
(12:20):
the mouth and how disgusting it is. Uh, they say,
if you magnified just a single cell on the surface
of that tongue. You would see about a hundred types
of bacteria right just on that cell. So this this bacteria.
When you eat and you swallow food after masticating it,
which isn't dirty, it means to uh, you leave little
(12:41):
particles in your mouth. It gets stuck in your teeth there.
Maybe if like you have beginning period donal disease, it
might get stuck in your gums along your teeth a
little bit. The very least, it's gonna get stuck to
the back of your tongue and it just kind of
sits there. And the bacteria in your mouth love this stuff.
It's food to them, and they break it down into
particles and particles and they're like, this is pretty good,
(13:03):
but I can't get the energy from it fully. So
I'm gonna break down the amino acids even further and
then bam. When I do, I'm going to basically emit
sulfur sulfuric gases, and that's where bad breath comes from.
There's sulfuric gases that are again a byproduct of the
uh bacteria eating the food particles in your mouth. Yeah,
(13:25):
leftover proteins, yeah, and it's um. The mouth is a
you know, it's a great breeding ground for it because
it's clammy and warm, and it's just got everything that
the bacteria loves to produce those stinky, stinky smells. Um.
But dry mouth can also cause halitosis because that's what
you get overnight and why you have stinky morning breath,
(13:47):
because your saliva production decreases when you sleep, Otherwise you
just be a drooling mess. Um. I wonder why that
doesn't work during naps on your school desk. I don't know,
you know, I guess because you don't go to sleep
enough be or if like your face is pressing against wood,
it's a signal of your body to increase wake up
the teacher is coming. But chronic dry mouth um is
(14:09):
something that can affect people during the daytime as well.
It's called zero stomia and um. If you have zerostomia,
you're gonna have a harder time fighting your bad breath
because your mouth is always dry. Like the mouth, the
saliva just acts as a natural mouth wash exactly. Not
only renses away like food particles, it rents a way bacteria.
(14:30):
It rents is away the dead skin cells and dead
mouth cells that the bacteria also eat. Um and Yeah,
the dryer it is, the less that action takes place,
and you've got stinky breath. Yeah. So if you're on
anahistamines or um antidepressants or pain killers, uh, dry mouth
is a side effect to some of those drugs, so
(14:51):
you might have a harder time. Uh. And if you're
sick anyway, you're gonna have stinky your breath to Like
if you're fighting a sinus infection. Let's say it's gross,
yes breath, because that mucus trickles back from your sinuses
down to your tongue and sits there, Yeah, and gets
eaten up to nasty stuff. This whole thing. I'm just cringing.
(15:15):
I'm gonna have one of those dreams tonight. There's you
could a sninky hell toasts breath dream. Yes, the hot
girl bad breath. It's always the same. Does Emily know
you're having dreams about kissing hot girls with bad breath? Yeah?
She thinks it's funny. She thinks it's because of my
uh repressed religious upbringing, repress sexuality. Like I won't even
(15:36):
in my dreams allow myself to kiss the model. That's hilarious,
Like she'll have I call it vomit tongue. It's so gross.
Oh yeah, that is pretty bad. Yeah, if they're the
worst dreams, I can't explain to you because they're really
headed in the right direction at first, you know, and
it's terrible. And when you're an old mary man, that's
all you got, I got you, you know, vomit tongue. No,
(15:56):
just you know your dreams. You can't be I know
it to me. I'm just can't be assaulted for having
a dream. I guess you could, but that's not a
very nice wife that give me my dream time. I'm
going to sleep. I'm down to sleep. Let's pull out
with the keyto acidosis. Man. Okay, so chuck. When you
(16:18):
have um, when you eat onions, when you have garlicquen
of food particles, all this stuff that's normal bad breath stuff.
There's also other things, metabolic things often that can give you,
like a a different type of breath. It may or
may not be bad. One bad one is if you
(16:38):
have liver problems, your liver shutting down, you're gonna have
what's called mousey breath. Can you imagine what mousey breath
smells like like? Apparently breath smells like live writhing mice
interesting mousey breath. I can't think of what else it
would denote. I don't know what a mouse smells like.
(16:59):
Uh sure, I mean, have you ever smelled like a
rodent cage? Yeah? But they smell like cedar and poop?
Is that what it smells like? Just what they mean
a cedar? Uh? So? Is keto acidosis the the no
carb effect? Yeah? Okay, Yeah, that is something that will
warn you about if you are trying to attain what's
(17:22):
known as ketosis with like an Atkins type diet um.
Some people, when they are reached that blissful level of
fat burning, it also takes their its toll on their
their mouth and their breath. Yeah, it's like a fruity
acid tony smell. Okay, that sounds better than mousey. Yeah,
it's better. It's gotta be better than Yeah. Yeah, when
(17:43):
you're in ketosis, you when you deprive your body of carbohydrates,
it doesn't have that energy to burn right there, so
it starts turning inward and going after your fat stores.
And when the body burns store fat keytones are what
is released as energy. You're burned his energy and this, Yeah,
it's the smell from burning keytones is what gives you
(18:06):
that fruity breath. Yeah, I've seen websites, you know that
they now have the articles. Of course, if you're if
this is the diet you want, this is how you
can help yourself. And one of the tips that's always
eat bread. It's like, yeah, but that all of a
sudden you're not on that diet more. Yeah, so that's
no solution. Yeah, you can get knocked out of keytoast
is pretty easy, I'm sure. Yeah, I think eating bread
(18:28):
would do it. So let's say you are sadly just
(18:55):
one of those people that just has that funky breath
one in four right, Yeah, if you're among that, it
does seem high. Yeah, I doesn't it. And that's like
chronic calitosis right yeah, where it's not just like you know,
brushing your teeth isn't gonna do the trick. Yeah. Yeah,
(19:17):
that sounds like a fact brought to us by the
Listering company. It might be, but like I said, maybe
um of those people are really trying their hardest so
you don't notice it, gotcha. And other people are just
smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee all day, which is a
bad combination. Yeah, it's pretty bad combination that somehow they
become greater than the sum of their part. Yeah, you know, yeah,
(19:40):
but that's uh, that's breakfast for college students, you know,
coffee and cigarettes. So what do you do if you're
if you're gonna battle this stuff, if it's more than
just something like just a breath mat can handle what's
going to happen here? Well, the breath mat just good
thing to mention that that can provide a little temporary relief,
but it's just masking the underneath. Right, So you're really
(20:01):
not gonna get very far as a solution, no, because
all it's doing is creating the sensation of freshness in
your mouth. Yeah, because it I get I don't know
what breath of mints do have frequently wondered, like what
is like um um mental too? Does that open up
your pores so like the air feels colder and fresher? Oh,
(20:24):
I don't know, like what creates that sensation? You don't know? Yeah,
that sounds like it don't be dumb episode to me,
but I think it might be. Um. What you want
to do is get to the root of the problem,
which is at bacteria and uh, like we said, food
particles in your teeth. Um is a big cause. So
brushing and flossing and the old tongue scraper and brushing
(20:48):
the back of the tongue you scrape the tongue. Doesn't
that make you gag? No, it doesn't bother me. I've
gotten used to it. I mean, you know, occasionally if
I overreach, that might be a little but I'm not
like retching in the back. I remember morning. I think
we should keep a webcam in your bathroom when you're
getting ready, just to catch those times that you do. Yeah,
(21:09):
just make ample vine compilation be hilarious. Uh So attacking
the source of the food particles. And you know, I
have the fake tooth now, so I have to be
extra careful to really brush along there because why I
think it would be like they've made it out of
some new super polymer that like reflects bacteria. Now that
(21:31):
the tooth itself is not the source, but it's um.
You know, where it meets the gum is not a
natural tooth. So I just have to like really brush
the crap out of that area my gum, you know,
get the craft out. I don't use mouthwash that which
is interesting. No, I just toothpaste. Well apparently, um, it's
not necessarily and plenty of mouthwashes a suggestion for this
(21:55):
um specifically types that contain, according to the British Medical Journal,
chloro hexadrine glucinate, chlora hexadrine glucinate or what you want,
because they kill bacteria. I take issue with this. Yeah,
one of the main functions of mouthwash isn't to just
go in and kill bacteria, although most mouthwashers do that. Um,
(22:16):
it's the swishing action loosens food particles and gets them
out from in between your teeth. What I'm saying is
is you don't necessarily need to use a mouthwash that
kills bacteria because you kind of want healthy bacteria. You
want what's called the um uh an oral ecosystem, in
(22:38):
your healthy oral ecosystem or ecology in your mouth uh
you want Remember remember the Poop Shake episode, the poop
Transplant vehical transplant episode, we ended up talking about the
microbiome and how important it is to humanityature, same thing
with our mouth. Yeah, you don't want to kill all
(22:58):
that bacteria now, and there's plenty bacteria that causes problems
like Streptococcus mutans. Is what gives us cavities. But there's
also plenty of beneficial bacteria where you would have a
mouthful of dead skin cells all over your tongue if
it weren't for this helpful bacteria breaking the stuff down.
It's your problem. Everybody wants to kill bacteria. That's not
(23:19):
necessarily a good thing. As a matter of fact, I
think we're learning more and more that it's not a
good thing. So I say avoid the mouthwash that kills
bacteria and just use some sort of mouthwash that maybe
has a minty flavor, but it's just really just swishing
the food particles out and getting rid of the bacteria's
food that's creating their stinky sulfur ducks. Yes, exactly. Um.
(23:44):
And because getting rid of the food is a big
part of it, I would suggest brushing your teeth after
lunch too, you know, like, don't make it just when
you get up and before you go to bed. I say,
go for three times a day. Whoa man who has
time for that? Everybody? Another good trick is to drink
a lot of water. Um. But you know, just keeping
(24:06):
your mouth hydrated daily basis is gonna help you. Said
that saliva is like a natural mouth wash. Water helps
it's it does the same thing, loosens food particles, gets
rid of dead skin cells. And the back of your
tongue apparently is like ground zero for it. Like I
think there's like twenty times more bacteria there than elsewhere
(24:27):
because it's like this bumpy surface that's out of the
way of all this other stuff. So things really stick
and accumulate back there. So that's the that's an area
you want to target, apparently with the tongue scraper. Yeah,
and you could just brush it as well. I do both.
But if you are a grown adult and you're not
either brushing your tongue or using a tongue scraper, then
(24:47):
you're not doing it right, Is that right? Yeah, somebody
needs to teach you. I give a quick part of
a quick you know, brush with with my toothbrush over
my tongue. But I worry about killing taste buds, like
I love tasting things. You're not gonna kill any taste buds.
Sure you can kill taste buds with that. Uh, well,
I haven't killed any, are you sure? Think about what
(25:09):
kind of a super taster you could be without your
scrap No, I do worry about that. I'm kind of like,
I'd rather have low level bad breath and be able
to taste great stuff, then have no bad breath whatsoever
and not be able to taste. I would rather have
no bad breath and still taste everything. Well, yeah, that's
the holy grail. What kind of like flim flam world?
(25:33):
Are you living in it? It's called Chuck's Life. It's nice.
It is nice. If none of this stuff works for you,
you may have a problem, Like you might want to
go see a dentist, uh, and maybe even a doctor. Well, yeah,
the dentist might say, go to the doctor. Yeah, I
go to the doctor, see you you have a mousey breath,
which means your liver shutting down, and find a new dentist.
(25:55):
You know, there's a smell test that they do that
dennists do really Yeah, what they'll do still say, Okay,
this is gonna be gross, but I want you to
breathe through your mouth and I'm going to sniff close
to your mouth. And then they say, okay, now I
want you to breathe through your nose and I'm gonna
sniff close to your nose and they can determine whether
(26:16):
it's a nasal and like a problem in your nasal
cavity that can give you bad breath. You can have
stinking sinuses, so gross, or if it's in your mouth,
and then they can further deduce it like yeah, if
this is the dentist doing this, yeah, and if it's
in your if it's coming through your nose, it suggests
possibly not just your sinuses, but it could be pulmonary
(26:39):
to like you could have some sort of lung problem
that's creating gases that stink and are coming out of
your nose rather than your mouth. So I guess they
train you to do that indental school. Huh. I guess
I could have to. That's not a very popular day,
you know, everybody pair up. Oh my god, there's the
one guy in the corner, like eating a sandwich. It's like,
what can I give a m two more tips? Please
(27:18):
get ten more. If you eat a crunchy breakfast like granola,
cereal or something like that, Okay, it's going to clear
out a lot of the gunk from the night before.
You just want to make sure you get rid of
all those food particles afterwards. And then if you're interested
in a mouth wash that is not antibacterial, really certainly now. Yeah. Uh,
(27:44):
it's you take a half a cup of warm water
and eighth of a teaspoon of cinnamon and one teaspoon
of honey, swirl all together and uh swish it around
and gargle it. That's like um, like old timey mouthwash apparently. Yeah,
and we could probably recommend apple cider vinegar just for anything. Yeah,
(28:05):
that's like the wonder uh, the wonder liquid. It seems like, dude,
I was once on my way to a full blown
kidney or um maybe urinary your urinary infection, some bladder infected.
Something was going on and it was starting to go
downhill fast and muse like drink this and drink a
(28:26):
lot of it. And I started drinking apple cider vinegar
and like raw cranberry juice, like the real cranberry juice.
Um over like about an eight to twelve hour period,
like really hit it and um gone, and like it
was happening, like the happening was going on, and like
I awoarted it. He stopped the happening. I do a
(28:47):
shot every morning now of apple cider vinegar. Yeah, and
don't get just the stuff in this store that you
you should be cooking and cleaning with there's the I
can't remember the brand, but there's the the super potable one,
the one that you think, yeah, the one that that
you'll find it a health food store. Yeah. I can't
remember the name of it, but there's like one brand
(29:08):
that everyone goes to, and it's it's tough. Man. If
you ever just do a straight shot of it without
deluding it, it's hardcore. Yeah. Yeah. Everything I was doing
was taking maybe a shot and then deluding it in
like eight ounces of water, and it's still very difficult. Yeah.
You can do it, though, especially when you're fighting off
some sort of infection. Yeah. And you want to brush
your teeth after that, because vinegar smells gross. Just brush
(29:30):
your teeth all the time. Uh. If you want to
learn more about halitosis, I don't know what more you
could possibly learn, but you can try. You can type
that word into the search part how stuff works dot
Com and it will bring up this article. And since
I said search part's time for a listener. Man, We're
gonna address our April Fools prank officially here with this one. Um.
(29:52):
I want to say, first of all, Josh, you and Ben,
I've was blown away by the performance. Thank you. You
guys sold it so hard, like and we just threw
it together. We were like, hey, let's just try. It
wasn't some big plot. We there's no practice planned for
weeks and weeks like, hey, maybe we should do an
April Fool's joke this year. And I said, hey, maybe
(30:12):
I quit the show and Ben took my place, and
you guys just winged it and like nailed it. Man.
I was sitting here beside you and I felt like
I was watching my own funeral. Yeah. It was weird. Yeah,
you kept going like cut, cut, stop, stop, and we're like, no,
we have to press on. So we're not jokesters typically,
but it was I think it was our only one
to be released on April fools Day. Was the first
(30:33):
time we had the opportunity to release one on April
Fools and look out two years from now, because that'll
be a yeah yeah. But if we do, like Josh
left the show, every would be like no, no, no,
or they'll be expecting that oh yeah, and we'll do
it and they'll be like, well, wait a minute, they
thought that. I would think that, you know, maybe we
could just give you like I don't know, you could
(30:54):
have a heart attack on the show or something. Uh
but anyway, we got an out worrying of people because
I was dead or missing. I know, people really really
reacted to that. Like a lot of people said they
didn't realize how much they needed you until when we're gone.
And yeah, there were plenty of people who said, like, Josh,
(31:15):
if it had been you, I would have felt the
same way. But um well I got to play the martyr.
I got the plumb roll. It was nice. It's like
I got a head to do nothing and just get
showered with actulation. But it was it was very neat
to see, like people were like, never leave, don't ever
do that again, and it was pretty cool. Actually. Yeah.
And also I want to say on behalf of Ben,
he asked us to to let everybody know whenever we
could that he actually was purposefully sounding terrible what he
(31:39):
was doing. He like that was play acting. Yeah. Yeah,
the whole point was like we wanted it to be
super awkward, right, I think you guys achieved that. Okay,
So so go ahead, back from the dead, Chuck. So
just from Matt from Athens, Georgia. Uh go dogs, Hey, guys,
my girlfriend I had been listeners For years, I didn't
realize just sound important to the show was to us.
So until your April fools Day show. I had listened
(32:00):
to the episode before she did, and he didn't even
tell her. That's kind of mean. And I was keen
on setting her up for the gag, so I sat
it down in the kitchen table and told her that, uh,
stuff you should know at some big news. I knew
she'd be sucked into the prank, but was not prepared
for what happened next. She started to cry and denounced
the show with one of you gone, saying she would
stop listening. She was worried about Chuck. I even have
(32:23):
people are worried about Emily. They were like they thought
Emily was in the hospital. U Chuck started um. She
said she would stop listening and was worried about Chuck
and started tossing out possible explanations like the best of
conspiracy theorists. She was so sad that I had to
fast forward to the reveal. After her surprising yet pretty
(32:43):
cute reaction, I was hoping to swap out her emotional
connection for a birthday shout out. She's a contemporary dancer
and uses the ideas in your podcast and her classes
in choreography. I think dances about Alan turning. I gotta
see this. Yeah, it's crazy. I admit this pretty crass
way of getting a happy birthday, but I think it's
worth a shot. So, Matt, you didn't tell us your
(33:05):
girlfriend's name, So we're just gonna say happy birthday to
Matt's girlfriend from Athens. Happy birthday Matt's girlfriend. I'm gonna
guess to Jennifer Matt enjoy sleeping on the couch this evening.
You know, we fooled some of our friends. Even Joe
and Dazzo texted me and said, you guys actually fooled
me for about eight seconds. Is that right? Yeah? Yeah,
we got a lot of people who said, like, I
didn't fall for anything all day, and the only people
(33:28):
who got me the stuff, you should know, it's because
you guys like destroyed it. And then the one me
for a minute I thought I was off the show
to us have to leave. Yeah, the ones that I
felt bad about though, we're the ones who listened to
it like after April one. Yeah yeah, and we're like Australia. Yeah,
and they didn't realize it was the it was yeah exactly.
But yes, so everyone, thank you very much for the
(33:49):
outpouring of emotion. We both feel very loved. Yeah, it's
it's sure. I mean, we know people like the show,
but when you hear stuff like that, it's like a
wild people gonna depend on this, and uh, we know
now that we're not allowed to ever leave. Now, it's
well go out in a murder suicide if anything. Cool. Agreed.
So if you guys love us so much, you can
(34:11):
hang out with us outside of the podcast too on
social media. We're on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter. Just search
Stuff you Should Know s Y s K, Josh and
Chuck and any of those and it will bring us
up and you will love it. And if you want
to send an email to Chuck, Jerry and me, you
can address it to Stuff podcast at how stuff works
dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
(34:35):
iHeart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my
heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
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