Cape One Health

Article 5 in an occasional series on the causes of bad breath

Biofilm is the formation of thin, sticky coating on the tongue. This is most noticable on awakening from a good night’s sleep.  This tongue coating almost always causes bad breath (another reason breath smells in the morning). This biofilm protects anerobic bacteria living under it allowing them to prosper and breed at an alarming rate. More bacteria mean more smells. Millions of bacteria can live on the rear of the tongue in these conditions.

The film can be seen as a white film over the tongue and appears most commonly when during sleep but sometimes when a person is ill.