New brush not tongue-in-cheek

By REBECCA WALSH health reporter

Is your dirty tongue showing?

We might remember to clean our teeth but many New Zealanders are neglecting their tongues and are likely to have bad breath as a result, a survey by an oral healthcare company has found.

The survey of 500 New Zealanders by Macleans found nearly 78 per cent of men and 60 per cent of women did not brush their tongue.

But 90 per cent of the bacteria that caused smelly breath lived on the tongue, Macleans said.

"Most Kiwis don't realise that cleaning your tongue is as important as cleaning your teeth so it's definitely one of the areas of oral hygiene that tends to get overlooked," said Wellington dental hygienist Kirsty Jennings.

Ms Jennings said the tongue was made of thousands of minute papillae of differing sizes that created elevations and depressions, trapping the bacteria that caused bad breath.

Cleaning the tongue disturbed the bacteria and prevented it building up.

But she said using a standard toothbrush or mouthwash was not the best option.

"Mouthwash is not the appropriate means to remove the bacteria and brushing the tongue can be too abrasive and may cause some damage to papillae and the taste buds, so it's more effective to gently scrape the bacteria from the tongue," she said.

To help New Zealanders avoid bad breath, Macleans has launched the first tooth and tongue brush here. It features a toothbrush on one side and "soft tongue cleaning rubber grooves" on the other. It costs about $5.30.

The company claims the new brush removes five times more bacteria than tooth brushing alone.

Dr David Crum, chief executive of the New Zealand Dental Association, said the tooth and tongue scraper might be another way of helping get rid of bad breath but quitting smoking, drinking enough water, avoiding spicy food and proper brushing of the teeth and gums were probably more important.

Dr Crum encouraged his patients to brush their tongues, particularly smokers, who built up a thick layer on their tongues which attracted more bacteria.

He was not aware of research that showed using a normal toothbrush was going to damage the tongue.

But he said if bad breath continued people should see their doctor because it could be the result of some underlying medical cause.

In countries where spicy food was popular, cleaning the tongue was common practice, he said.