SOME time ago, a man of about 56 years old asked me whether masturbation could result in bad breath. After recovering from my surprise, I told him that I did not see an obvious connection, and asked him where he came up with this idea.  He said someone told him that. I dismissed the issue as a joke until I recently read an article by the great Jewish sage and rabbi, Ramban, who lived a few centuries ago. Among his many famous published papers, he related that excessive evacuation of sperm causes one’s strength to grow weak, one’s eyesight to grow dim, and bad breath to appear. Of course, no research has been done to support the premise, although there are many factors scientifically proven to cause bad breath.
But on an aspect which is more verifiable: How is your breath? Not sure? Well,  don’t be worried. Many studies show that generally, people are unable to judge their own bad breath in an objective fashion. This is probably because we all have certain preconceptions of how bad our own breath smells. We are heavily influenced by our mindset, regardless of how bad the smell actually is.
The reason for this lies in the fact that the oral cavity, the source of our breath, is connected to our nose by way of an opening which lies in the back of our mouths in the region of our soft palate.
Since noses tend to filter out and ignore background odours, they tend to filter out our own bad breath too. This means that it is quite possible for a person to have bad breath and not be aware of it. When I was in the USA last year attending the American Dental Association Conference, there were various manufacturing agencies promoting and selling gadgets which could test how bad your breath smells.  The result is displayed digitally. I was not interested in purchasing any for clinical use, because I think it would have been a waste of money.
If our noses can’t reliably help us judge the quality of our own breath, how can we determine if we do have bad breath? One solution is to ask the opinion of a spouse or significant other. In lieu of the availability of these individuals, you might ask a friend or your dentist at your next appointment. If you find this too personal a question to ask an adult, don’t overlook asking a child. As we all know, sometimes the least inhibited and the most honest responses come from children.
Is there a way one can test their own breath? There are ways to accurately smell your breath. However, you have to take a slightly indirect route. Now, do this experiment. It will check the odour associated with the back of your tongue (your tongue; “posterior” aspect).  Take a spoon, turn it upside down, and use it to scrape the very back portion of your tongue (Don’t be surprised you have an active gag reflex while the spoon is back there). Take a look at the material that has been scraped off. Usually, it’s a thick, whitish material. Now, take a whiff of it.
Not so bad? Pretty nasty? This smell, as opposed to the sampling from the anterior portion of your tongue, is probably the way your breath smells to others.
Although there are over seventy reasons why one can have bad breath, the most common cause is odour-producing bacteria that grow in the mouth, and thrive on food particles. The sulphur compounds released by these germs make your breath smell. More accurately, most person’s bad breath is caused by the bacteria which live in this coating.
The second most common fundamental cause of bad breath is bacteria which live and accumulate elsewhere in a person’s mouth.