If you have tried a ketogenic diet you most likely sometime have experienced something called ketogenic breath. This means that there is a smell from your breath due to that certain chemicals are released in your breath when the body is burning fat. The reason the breath smells bad is that the body has started to release ketones and your body is starting to get into the state of ketosis.
It is also quite common that you do not only get ketogenic breath but also that your urine starts to smell. This is a good way to know that you are in the state of ketosis but since some people can think that it smells strange they might think that something is wrong. There is however no need to worry since that ketogenic breath or bad smelling urine while on a ketogenic diet is nothing to worry about since it is totally natural.
“Carbohydrates aren’t readily available, so you start to use other fats and proteins as your source of energy, and as a result you are going to get a breath problem” – Kenneth Burrell, senior director of the council on scientific affairs of the American Dental Association.
How to cure ketogenic breath
Many people think that the smell is due to bad dental hygiene and will brush their teeth even more or try to floss or scrape the tongue. But since ketogenic breath is not due to something in your mouth this will not help to prevent the smell. There is actually no good method to totally get rid of the bad smell but there are some things you can do to try to hide it.
Hiding ketogenic breath
In order to hide the smell from ketogenic breath you could start out by trying to chew sugar free chewing gum or by using mouthwash regularly. This however does not guarantee that the bad breath will still not come through but it will help to hide it a little. There are also sugar free mints that you can eat that will help to hide the ketogenic breath. If you really think that the ketogenic breath is a big problem you can of course change your diet and eat some more carbohydrates but then you will loose the major benefits of the diet.
“If you have a metabolic cause of bad breath, there is very little the dentist can do; you have to change your diet”
You can also drink more water during the day since it will help flush out the bad breath a little.
However there might also be other reasons that you have a bad breath so it could be a good idea to contact a doctor or a dentist to find out the actual reason of the bad breath if you suspect that it is not due to your ketogenic diet.
Have you experienced ketogenic breath and do you have some other good suggestions on how to get rid of it? Post a comment here below with some tips for our readers.
