Biological Anthropologist Helen Fischer once said in a conference that kissing is a major factor for mate selection among humans. This mechanism, according to Fischer is an age-old courting act that does a huge influence on finding "the one".
Of course, pleasant sensations invade a person's body as he or she locks lips with another. The action of the muscles of the lips and the tongue causes blood to rush to the spot. Bodies warm up, increasing blood pressure (in a pleasant manner) and the brain releases feel-good chemicals which include oxytocin and endorphins.
However, a group of microbiologists said that at least 80 million germs are exchanged between partners every 10 seconds of kissing. These germs are exchanged back and forth through saliva. On top of these, the experts have added that couples who smooch several times during the day, regardless of the duration of lip contact, will eventually contact the same amount of germs from each other.
Remco Kort Professor in Microbial Genomics from TNO's Microbiology and Systems Biology department in the Netherlands, a co-author of the said study, shared that couples who hare kisses intimately and often were found to have almost similar oral microbiota. A person's "oral microbiota" is simply the "community" of microscopic organisms that are found in the oral area.
While the bacteria and the other germs that commonly reside in one's mouth (along with those found in the rest of the digestive system) have long been found to play significant roles in digestion, this established magnitude of germ exchange between couples during kissing calls for heightened oral hygiene.
This is especially that several illnesses that are caused by bacteria and viruses can be transmitted during these intimate encounters.
The Human papillomavirus or HPV, which is considered to be the most common STD in America, and the infamous Ebola Virus that has already taken 4,447 lives in West Africa as of writing, are only two of the most dreaded diseases which can be transmitted through contact with an affected individual's saliva (plus other bodily fluids)