Patient, Smell Thyself
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Patient,
Smell Thyself
By Steve Mirsky
Worried that you have bad breath? Unless vultures are actually circling your
mouth, there's good news. The problem may not be your breath at all, but your
personality.
Researchers at TAU decided to study just how bad the breath really was of 38
people whose concerns about their oral malodor drove them to seek medical
attention. The researchers, led by Prof. Mel Rosenberg and Dr. Ilana Eli of the
Maurice and Gabriela Goldschleger School of Dental Medicine, Sackler
Faculty of Medicine, published the results in a recent issue of Psychosomatic
Medicine. Sixteen patients had themselves come to the conclusion that they
had a problem. Another 12 were driven to this conclusion -- they claimed that
others had complained. The last 10 were getting input from both sides, having
decided for themselves that they reeked but having also found the telltale
gift-wrapped
bottle of mouthwash in their desk drawer.
As part of the study, the 38 subjects rated their own breath on a scale of zero
to 10, where zero was presumably something like minty roses and 10 must
have been whatever Linda Blair ejected onto the priest in The Exorcist that
made him lose his faith. They also mouth breathed from a distance of 10
centimeters right into the face of an "odor judge," who similarly rated the scent
from zero to 10. To put the whole thing in perspective, the odor judge
produced a baseline bad-breath value by assigning a rank for a control sample:
dung based fertilizer. The study subjects likewise rated the fertilizer, to prove
that they did not suffer from anosmia -- loss of sense of smell.
When the dust settled and the bodies were carted off, the ratings got analyzed,
leading to some fascinating insights. Both the odor judge and the subjects rated
the fertilizer at about nine on the stink scale. But whereas the odor judge rated
the subjects on average to be far closer to mint than to manure, at 2.7, the
study group assigned itself an average score suitable to grow a decent corn
crop with--6.7.
Because the patients completed a psychological profile, the researchers were
able to note higher than normal values for interpersonal sensitivity and
obsession compulsion. Increased interpersonal sensitivity may cause some to
blame breath for their “self-consciousness and negative expectations regarding
interpersonal communications,” the study states, whereas obsession-compulsion
can lead to “increased involvement with personal hygiene in
general and with oral odors in particular.” Either way, it may be of some
comfort to know that bad breath, unlike beauty, may be in the mind of the nose
holder.
Reprinted by kind permission of the author from the August 1996 issue of
Scientific American.
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