The Short Story:
- Bad Bacteria release smelly gasses in your mouth
- Good Bacteria don’t
- Find those gasses and you know bad bacteria are present
- Gas Chromatography lets us do that.
The Rest of the Story:
Gas Fingerprints Reveal Bacteria: Newly understood science now shows us that your breath is a fantastic analytical tool for determining oral health. By measuring the gases in your breath, we can get a glimpse into what’s going on inside your mouth at the microscopic level – so that’s what we do. By examining your breath’s gas “fingerprints”, we can determine whether you have too many bad bacteria in your mouth. Those results then help us formulate strategies designed to keep your mouth, and your whole body, healthier.
Unprecedented Technology: Gas Chromatography is what allows us to do this. It’s a fabulous tool – that’s typically only used in research hospitals and university lab facilities – but one which we are now using in our dental offices. In fact, we are currently the only dental office in Colorado that uses this very sophisticated technology to analyze your breath’s components, right down to the parts per billion.
Like An Episode of CSI: Mouth – Measuring for the presence and quantity of what are called volatile sulfur compounds in your breath is forensic detective work – just like on an episode of CSI. By looking for these bacterial gas ‘fingerprints’ in your mouth, we are effectively seeking the evidence that certain harmful oral bacteria are present, because only the bad bacteria produce those gasses. Thus, if we find those gasses, we know the harmful bacteria are in there.
You Can’t Smell Your Own:
And here’s one more thing that you probably didn’t know and will be shocked to find out. The most embarrassing and socially stigmatizing problem that one can have – namely bad breath – is really just those same bacteria releasing VSC gasses into your oral cavity as waste products.
In other words, most bad breath is literally bacteria ‘farting’ in your mouth. It’s gross but it’s true – and you can help put a stop to it.
Breath Analysis = The Future: At any rate, we are excited to offer you this fantastic analytical technology in our offices. It’s really cutting edge stuff. In fact, many experts are saying that breath analysis may eventually replace blood testing as a non-invasive screening tool in the future. To reinforce that point, it’s already being used to detect breast cancer, lung cancer, kidney disease, and diabetes at the places like the Cleveland Clinic, the Mayo Clinic and other prestigious medical facilities around the globe.
