Dentist warns against prolonged fasting

Dr Simon Audu, the Secretary, Nigerian Dental Therapists Association (NDTA), has warned that fasting for long period of days could cause mouth odour.
Audu said this while fielding questions from the NAN on Friday in Abuja.

The dentist said that if one hardly took breakfast down to launch time, such a person was prone to mouth odour which is called halitosis. According to him, halitosis is an offensive odour perceived not from you as an individual but from the second party. He also said that denying oneself food even without fasting could lead to mouth odour, adding that the type of food one consumed could also cause mouth odour.

According to him, the most important thing to do is to come to the dental clinic, let us asses the type of odour that you have including the type of food you eat. He stated that the first organ of the body that needed proper care was the mouth, noting that the mouth remains the door to view the body. He said that the oral health of the mouth determines the general health of the body and if you do not take good care of your mouth, that is where the disease comes from.

“You eat through the mouth and in fact it is through the mouth you nourish your body and I believe without the mouth you do not have the body. Since you cannot eat anything through your nose or ear but everything you consume passes through your mouth; hence your mouth is very important,” the dentist said.

He stated that there were factors that caused mouth odour called halitosis. “In halitosis, there are three factors involved; we have the psychological factor, the physical factor and we have the mentalised factor,” he said.

He said that there are halitosis caused by diseases from poor oral hygiene. “That is why sometimes somebody may just have mouth odour if you tell him he has mouth odour he/she will say no. “There are others that do not have, but they will come back and tell you that doctor I have mouth odour even if they do not have and you will keep on arguing with them,” Audu said.

The expert explained that such type of condition is called psychological factor, stating that it can be attributed to the social way of life and interaction with people and their perception.