Article - Is coffee the key to beating bad breath?

Interesting article on coffee & bad breath. I was always under the impression that coffee contributes to bad breath, rather than help prevents it. Maybe that's true only for certain people. I have smelt bad breath which contains coffee (& nothing else). The worst of all is bad breath containing coffee, tuna & tobacco. Yuk - that's gross (though I don't tell that to people's face!)

I'm no coffee expert - I don't drink that much coffee. I drink more tea than coffee - especially over the last few months. At work (during morning & afternoon tea breaks), I only ever drink tea, but not coffee. I can definitely say from my experience that tea does not cause bad breath, thank goodness.

Anyway, here is the article (http://www.cosmopolitan.com.au/coffee_breath.htm)

Coffee Breath!

Australians love their morning coffee. We need that latte, flat white, or cappuccino to get us buzzing all the way till lunch time. Recent ABS statistics has shown we consume a whopping 1.23 million cups of coffee a day. But what about the side effects?

Coffee has long been noted as the cause for bad breath - but new research suggests this isn't true. In fact, it could be quite the opposite. The coffee bean could hold the secret to keeping bad breath at bay.

Research shows that coffee beans contain compounds that prevent bacteria releasing the gases behind halitosis (the disease for bad breathe. Coffee beans contain a special compound that prevents bacteria. Pinpointing the key chemicals could lead to coffee 'mints' or pastilles that stop bad breath at the source.

The research by Professor Mel Rosenberg, has found that adding black coffee to 'soups' of bacteria-filled saliva blocked the release of gases that cause breath to smell. In some cases, the amount of gas was cut by up to 90 per cent.

“We expected that coffee would cause bad breath but there is something inside this magic brew that has the opposite effect.”

By:- Monique Jones