Two teenagers
from Nigeria,
Eveshorhema
Samuel-Alli and
Ibukunoluwa
Oladeinde that
proudly
represented
Nigeria at the
2014 Intel
International
Science and
Engineering Fair
in Los Angeles,
California, USA,
have bagged an
award as a result of their research work on
Halistosia a.k.a mouth odour.


HALITOSIS or bad breath, is an unpleasant odour
of the mouth present on exhaled breath.


According to medical experts, this very
embarrassing condition which can be acute
(occasional) or chronic (long-lasting), could be
caused by several factors including food, poor
dental hygiene, tobacco products, health
problems, dry mouth, mouth infections, dentures
or braces and medications.


Bad breath has caused otherwise well qualified
people to lose employment opportunities, caused
job losses, and friendships/marriages to crash. In
their search for a solution, the two students of
Doregos Private Academy, Ipaja, Lagos, carried
out research on African walnut (Coula edulis), a
member of the tree nut family common in


Nigeria. At the end, they discovered that apart
from its cancer-fighting properties, rare
antioxidants, benefits for the heart and
circulatory system, weight control, improved
reproductive health in men, brain health and
diabetes, walnut could also cure bad breath.


According to Eveshorhema, the idea for this
project came while on a school trip to a rural area
in Nigeria where the host community served
them walnuts. “When I woke up in the morning, I
hadn’t brushed my teeth yet but my breath was
already fresh. Then I remembered I had eaten
walnuts the previous night.” To confirm her
suspicion, she ate more nuts the following night
and awoke with fresh breath again and that made
them to carry out further research. “This project
actually won us a Life Science Award of $1,000 in
the Medicine and Health Science category,
courtesy, Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society.”


The experiment:
“The Halitosis project has to do with mouth
odour and we used a common Nigerian snack, the
walnut, to cure mouth odour because it is a very
embarrassing problem. Your best friend won’t
tell you that your mouth is smelling so we had to
find a solution to it.


Consent forms
“We conducted this experiment using 35
volunteers who were students of our school. we
sent out parents consent forms and when we
received the parents’ consent, we continued the
experiment. The volunteers were divided into
four groups.
The duo then made two different walnut
products. Walnut chewing gum: “We made
walnut chewing gum by adding resins and
sucrose to chopped walnuts. Walnut mouthwash:
“Also, we made a walnut mouthwash mixing
chopped walnut, water and 10 per cent lime as
preservative. One group was given whole walnuts
to eat; thev second group was given walnut
chewing gum; the third was given walnut
mouthwash while the last group was given
nothing so they were the control group. “They
took the walnut morning and night. We then
observed them and recorded the results.
They did not brush their teeth for the duration of
the experiment. They were going only on walnut
so we would be able to see the improvement,”
said Eveshorhema Samuel-Alli. “After this, we
conducted an experiment using Lead tri-oxo
nitrate (v) in which the volunteers were made to
blow bubbles into a solution of lead nitrate and
water before and after the experiment. “Before
they took the walnut and walnut products, they
were made to blow bubbles into the solution and
then we recorded how long it took to turn the
solution black. What turns the solution black is
hydrogen sulphide and that is what causes mouth
odour. So if it takes a short time, that means the
mouth odour is actually very bad.
Then after the experiment, they were also made
to blow bubbles into the solution and this time, it
was noticed that there was significant time lapse
before the solution turned black. When the
control group who had bacteria in their mouths,
blew bubbles into the solution, it turned black
while it remained clear when the other groups
blew bubbles into it.
So we knew that the walnut was actually working
to cure halitosis.” Bacterial culture:From the
results obtained, the duo suspected that some
chemicals like alkaloids, oleic acid and tannins in
the African walnut must be killing some of the
odour-causing bacteria in the mouth. So they
swabbed the mouths of each volunteer, grew the
bacteria and counted the number. They found out
that those who had the walnut treatment had
fewer bacterial load.


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Intresting! God bless Nigeria

impressive, let me go and start thinking of what to invent/discover to help dis my generation.

Its sometin of gr8 joy 2 see a country termed negative 2 d world do sometin positive 4d world 2move forward.. GOD BLESS NIGERIA