A 10 second kiss could transmit up to 80 million bacteria, harmful or beneficial?

by Saif Abdellaoui · May 17, 2015

A new study published in the Microbiome journal indicates that nearly 80 million bacteria are exchanged during an intimate 10 seconds kiss.

On its own, our mouth contains over 100 billion bacteria spread in 700 varieties. When you know this information, you can easily conceive that a swap of microorganisms from one mouth to another is possible during a kiss. However, what is more difficult to imagine is the number of the exchanged bacteria.

1 The transmission of 80 million bacteria during one kiss (French kissing in the first place)

A new study carried by a team from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) has managed to estimate that amount; it would be about 80 million. To be more specific, these 80 million bacteria would be transferred during a 10 second “French kiss”. “Intimate kisses with tongue contact and saliva exchange, appear to be a seductive behavior to humans and it is common in more than 90% of known cultures” says Remco Kort, a microbiologist at NWO.

This is really very interesting, the current explanations of the functioning of the intimate kissing for humans includes an important role for various microflora that exist in the oral cavity but we still do not know the exact effect of intimate kissing on oral microbiota which was never been studied.