8 things your breath could reveal about your health
Stop throwing mints at the problem and find out what's really causing your bad breath.
Jan, 2026
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Slide 1
Your breath can reveal a lot about your health status. In fact, practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine have used the smell of people’s breath to help make medical diagnoses for centuries. Dogs can even be trained to detect cancer based on the way someone's breath smells.
Here are eight things your breath can reveal, plus ways to get help for common bad breath issues.
Written byMichael Gollust.
Medically reviewed byAmy Gonzales, MD.
Sources: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Four Diagnostic Methods. Page accessed October 25 + 17
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