Molybdenum supplementation seems to be my solution
Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2022 2:42 am
Short answer: high-dose molybdenum supplementation.
Disclaimer: Do not consider what I write to be any kind of medical advice. Everyone's condition can be different and what works for one person, may not for another. Do your own research and take the proper precautions when experimenting.
I've had bad breath for pretty much all of my life, but it seemed like it got slowly worse over time. I'm also blessed (or cursed) with the ability to smell my own breath, so I'm not hit with any surprises when talking with people. My theory is that my deviated septum creates some kind of turbulence in the nose, and with the air bouncing off the internal walls, I'm able to somehow smell my own breath. To describe my breath, on a bad day, my breath smells like fecal garbage, mixed with rotten cabbage, with the funky smell of a barnyard. Lovely combo. No matter how well I brush, floss, and scrape my tongue, the smell can't be effectively nullified, since it comes from the lungs. You can only temporarily get rid of the residue that habitates inside the mouth, but you still breathe out the nasty smell anyway.
Initially, I assumed I just had a very bad case of dysbiosis and gut imbalance. I didn't have the benefit of natural birth and wasn't breast-fed, which added to this assumption. But all tests and stool exams turned up negative. I took full-spectrum probiotics for many years, including a few hundred billion CFU doses daily, of lacto-bifido blends, soil/spore probiotics, and yeast probiotics (e.g. Florastor). They didn't make a dent. Then, I took a few SIBO breath tests, including the one that could detect hydrogen sulfide from trio smart labs. One of them I believe was a false positive, the rest were negative. That false positive test was done with a lactulose substrate which reacts towards the end of the test, and since I'm asian, I probably have a shorter than average small intestine, so the earlier-than-expected large intestine reaction was probably what showed up in the test results. Then, I thought, why not test my stomach acid levels with the Heidelberg test. This wireless capsule test revealed that I had low stomach acid. Gotcha, I thought. But it turns out, this probably has nothing to do with my bad breath. No amount of stomach acidifiers (betaine hcl or apple cider vinegar) did the trick, and all it did was give me ulcers. Plus, whenever I look up symptoms for low stomach acid, rarely if ever, is "bad breath" listed as one of them. So it seemed low stomach acid wasn't the cause. Digestive enzymes didn't do much of anything, either.
Then, I came across articles mentioning some researchers in Europe (Netherlands?) isolated a gene called SELENBP1 as one of the causes of extra-oral (not originating from the mouth) halitosis. Apparently, sulfur metabolism in humans creates a nasty smelling sulfur metabolite gas called methanethiol (or methyl mercaptan). In most people, this gas is transformed into hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen peroxide, and formaldehyde via methanethiol oxidase (MTO). But in some people, a faulty mutation in this gene leaves this funky smelling gas in the system, which makes its way into the bloodstream, to the lungs, and is breathed out. This condition is called methanethiol oxidase (MTO) deficiency. Unfortunately, there is no cure, just limited "management". Basically, one would have to stick to a low methionine diet, which is incredibly and hopelessly restricting. I also like to stick to keto diets and foods, which unfortunately contains generally the highest amounts of methionine (e.g. meats). So now, I have to choose between having less shitty breath or not being fat? Life is amusing sometimes. I believe the ultimate cure lies in genetic therapy and engineering, but the state of the art just isn't there yet, so "management" is the only option at the present.
So, I did one of those comprehensive 30x genetic tests and confirmed that my SELENBP1 gene is "highly pathogenic". Doing some more research, I came across some articles suggesting that molybdenum may help neutralize this smelly gas.
https://patents.google.com/patent/JP2010111591A/en
At first, I took "normal" doses (50-150 mcg daily) for just a few days, noticed that my breath didn't improve, and just gave up. Then for some reason, I decided to have another go, and this time, I stayed on it for a full week and ramped up the dosage equal to the daily upper tolerable limit rated at 2,000 mcg (or 2 mg) daily. Again, it didn't seem to have any effect. So I just moved on. Then, about a few days later after I stopped, I noticed that my fecal/cabbage breath cleared up considerably. I credited the improvement to one of those unexplainable random once-in-a-blue-moon days where my breath isn't that bad. But then, I ended up having 3-4 days of clear breath. Not that I was complaining, but as an engineer, I always like to know why something happens. My diet didn't change day to day, so either this was some kind of coincidence, or the molybdenum had something to do with it. After the bad breath returned, I decided to repeat the experiment, taking 2 mg daily for a full week. Again, there was a lag time of a few days before the breath cleared up. My guess is that the molybdenum reaches a certain saturation level in the system after some time, before it starts to work effectively. I've also noticed that my tongue appears more moist and pink ever since I started taking molybdenum. Previously, on bad days, my tongue would appear dry and white.
I've been on molybdenum for a couple of weeks and so far, haven't had a bad day yet. I've already accepted that there may not be a cure in my lifetime, but I can live with an effective management solution. Standard molybdenum blood tests only look for toxicity, not deficiency. So my plan is to take monthly blood tests and then space them out quarterly, to see if I'm ever in danger of overdosing. If I'm close to the edge, maybe I can dial it back to 1 mg daily.
This is my solution that seems to work for me. Hopefully, this will help others in a similar situation.
Disclaimer: Do not consider what I write to be any kind of medical advice. Everyone's condition can be different and what works for one person, may not for another. Do your own research and take the proper precautions when experimenting.
I've had bad breath for pretty much all of my life, but it seemed like it got slowly worse over time. I'm also blessed (or cursed) with the ability to smell my own breath, so I'm not hit with any surprises when talking with people. My theory is that my deviated septum creates some kind of turbulence in the nose, and with the air bouncing off the internal walls, I'm able to somehow smell my own breath. To describe my breath, on a bad day, my breath smells like fecal garbage, mixed with rotten cabbage, with the funky smell of a barnyard. Lovely combo. No matter how well I brush, floss, and scrape my tongue, the smell can't be effectively nullified, since it comes from the lungs. You can only temporarily get rid of the residue that habitates inside the mouth, but you still breathe out the nasty smell anyway.
Initially, I assumed I just had a very bad case of dysbiosis and gut imbalance. I didn't have the benefit of natural birth and wasn't breast-fed, which added to this assumption. But all tests and stool exams turned up negative. I took full-spectrum probiotics for many years, including a few hundred billion CFU doses daily, of lacto-bifido blends, soil/spore probiotics, and yeast probiotics (e.g. Florastor). They didn't make a dent. Then, I took a few SIBO breath tests, including the one that could detect hydrogen sulfide from trio smart labs. One of them I believe was a false positive, the rest were negative. That false positive test was done with a lactulose substrate which reacts towards the end of the test, and since I'm asian, I probably have a shorter than average small intestine, so the earlier-than-expected large intestine reaction was probably what showed up in the test results. Then, I thought, why not test my stomach acid levels with the Heidelberg test. This wireless capsule test revealed that I had low stomach acid. Gotcha, I thought. But it turns out, this probably has nothing to do with my bad breath. No amount of stomach acidifiers (betaine hcl or apple cider vinegar) did the trick, and all it did was give me ulcers. Plus, whenever I look up symptoms for low stomach acid, rarely if ever, is "bad breath" listed as one of them. So it seemed low stomach acid wasn't the cause. Digestive enzymes didn't do much of anything, either.
Then, I came across articles mentioning some researchers in Europe (Netherlands?) isolated a gene called SELENBP1 as one of the causes of extra-oral (not originating from the mouth) halitosis. Apparently, sulfur metabolism in humans creates a nasty smelling sulfur metabolite gas called methanethiol (or methyl mercaptan). In most people, this gas is transformed into hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen peroxide, and formaldehyde via methanethiol oxidase (MTO). But in some people, a faulty mutation in this gene leaves this funky smelling gas in the system, which makes its way into the bloodstream, to the lungs, and is breathed out. This condition is called methanethiol oxidase (MTO) deficiency. Unfortunately, there is no cure, just limited "management". Basically, one would have to stick to a low methionine diet, which is incredibly and hopelessly restricting. I also like to stick to keto diets and foods, which unfortunately contains generally the highest amounts of methionine (e.g. meats). So now, I have to choose between having less shitty breath or not being fat? Life is amusing sometimes. I believe the ultimate cure lies in genetic therapy and engineering, but the state of the art just isn't there yet, so "management" is the only option at the present.
So, I did one of those comprehensive 30x genetic tests and confirmed that my SELENBP1 gene is "highly pathogenic". Doing some more research, I came across some articles suggesting that molybdenum may help neutralize this smelly gas.
https://patents.google.com/patent/JP2010111591A/en
At first, I took "normal" doses (50-150 mcg daily) for just a few days, noticed that my breath didn't improve, and just gave up. Then for some reason, I decided to have another go, and this time, I stayed on it for a full week and ramped up the dosage equal to the daily upper tolerable limit rated at 2,000 mcg (or 2 mg) daily. Again, it didn't seem to have any effect. So I just moved on. Then, about a few days later after I stopped, I noticed that my fecal/cabbage breath cleared up considerably. I credited the improvement to one of those unexplainable random once-in-a-blue-moon days where my breath isn't that bad. But then, I ended up having 3-4 days of clear breath. Not that I was complaining, but as an engineer, I always like to know why something happens. My diet didn't change day to day, so either this was some kind of coincidence, or the molybdenum had something to do with it. After the bad breath returned, I decided to repeat the experiment, taking 2 mg daily for a full week. Again, there was a lag time of a few days before the breath cleared up. My guess is that the molybdenum reaches a certain saturation level in the system after some time, before it starts to work effectively. I've also noticed that my tongue appears more moist and pink ever since I started taking molybdenum. Previously, on bad days, my tongue would appear dry and white.
I've been on molybdenum for a couple of weeks and so far, haven't had a bad day yet. I've already accepted that there may not be a cure in my lifetime, but I can live with an effective management solution. Standard molybdenum blood tests only look for toxicity, not deficiency. So my plan is to take monthly blood tests and then space them out quarterly, to see if I'm ever in danger of overdosing. If I'm close to the edge, maybe I can dial it back to 1 mg daily.
This is my solution that seems to work for me. Hopefully, this will help others in a similar situation.