5 Health Benefits That Come From Kissing

We’ve written before at HuffPost UK about how plums and gooseberries can benefit your heart, hair, bones, and much more.

And we’ve shared how even small bursts of exercise, like a 1.6km walk or a 10-minute run, can help you to live longer, too.

But if you’re after an even more enjoyable health-boosting activity, it seems you could do a lot worse than kissing.

Here are just a few health reasons to pucker up:

What are the health benefits of kissing?

In general, falling in love seems to be good for our immune system. And kissing in particular introduces a lot of new bacteria to your mouth – which, while it sounds gross, might actually boost our disease-fighting capabilities further.

At least, that’s according to a 2023 paper which found that people who kissed at least seven times a month were less likely to have problematic levels of “bad” (LDL) cholesterol.

You might not have needed a research paper to prove that kissing can de-stress us, but in case you did, this 2023 study found that affectionate physical touch can keep worries at bay.

We know that not producing enough saliva can give cavity-producing bacteria more of a chance to get to work. That’s why some experts recommend eating xylitol-containing foods like some sugar-free chewing gums, strawberries, oats, plums, mushrooms, and lettuce – the sugar alcohol increases saliva flow, reducing your risk of developing caries.

Researchers are exploring whether or not swapping saliva with your partner has a similar effect, helping our teeth to recover faster from exposure to sugary and/or fermented items.

A systematic review focusing on physical touch, including kissing and massages, found that the intervention may be linked to better-managed blood pressure.