Kissing is disgusting : A ill choreographed rite of bad breath , cumbersome eye liaison , and slobbery after - dribble . Now , to make it even worse , a Modern sketch from the Netherlands has determined how many cooties move from one mouth to another during your basic smack . And it ’s A LOT .
The study in the diary namedMicrobiome(of course ) looked at the kiss habits of 21 couples as well as the microbial garden of their lip . After answer a kissing questionnaire which explore doings from quick pot to , you know , kiss with natural language , scientist swabbed the couples ’ oral caries . Couples that kissed at least nine times a day had far more similarities in their salivary bacterium , which proved that telephone exchange were happening from oral cavity to mouth .
But researchers also wanted to love how much bacterium was being transferred , osculate for osculation . So they asked one appendage of each couple to drink some yoghourt , then snog , to see how much of its probiotic bacteria was transferred . The recipients terminate up with three multiplication as much Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria in their mouths as they did pre - kiss , which works out to about 80 million bacterium per typical 10 - 2nd kiss .
This exchange of bacterium might volunteer some kind of evolutionary welfare , although we still do n’t know precisely what kissing is good for , according to one of the study ’s authors , Remco Kort , of TNO ’s Microbiology and Systems Biology section :
“ Intimate kissing involving full tongue contact and saliva interchange appear to be a courtship behavior unique to humans and is vulgar in over 90 percent of cognise cultures . Interestingly , the current explanations for the subroutine of versed kissing in humankind let in an authoritative function for the microbiota present in the oral cavity , although to our cognition , the exact effects of internal snuggling on the unwritten microbiota have never been studied . ”
So until we find out , pucker up and try not to think about what else you ’re planting on your spouse ’s face . [ WaPo ]
Top image : Wallenrock / Shutterstock
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