French kissing risks more than pash rash
French kissing puts teens at greater risk of contracting meningococcal disease than their lip-pecking counterparts, UK research shows.
While intimate kissing with multiple partners appears to increase the risk of contracting the disease, the UK study found that recently attending a religious event was associated with a low risk.
The study, published this week in the British Medical Journal, involved about 300 teenagers aged 15 to 19 who had been admitted to hospital with a meningococcal infection.
Lead researcher, Professor Robert Booy, co-director of Australia's National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance at the Children's Hospital at Westmead says that the microbes that we normally carry in our throats are readily transmitted to another person through intimate kissing.
For meningococcal disease, this is the bacteria Neisseria meningitidis. Infection can lead to blood poisoning (meningococcal septicaemia), inflammation of the outer lining around the brain and spinal cord (meningococcal meningitis), or a combination of the two.
"When microbes that cause meningitis are transferred from one person to another, the body's immune system is normally able to repel them and they don't do any harm," he says.
"But if by chance you have a sore throat because of a smoky atmosphere or an existing virus, the inflammation in your throat disrupts the protective epithelial membrane.
"This makes it easy for the meningococcal microbes to pass through the lining of the throat into the blood stream and travel up to the brain where they cause meningitis."
But teens who avoid smoky parties and don't kiss with a sore throat may still be at high risk, the study suggests.
University students are a high-risk group, the study shows, as are teens who were born pre-term or who had glandular fever. Substance misuse was another high-risk behaviour.
"Our research suggests that vaccination is still the most effective way to reduce the risk of meningococcal disease. But behavioural changes remain important because the vaccines available don't protect against all causes of meningococcal diseases," Booy says.
He speculates that teens with a religious lifestyle may have fewer opportunities to exchange saliva, thus putting them at low risk of the disease.
"Believers might prefer to account for this particular finding as the power of prayer. Or it could be that the non-church goers lied about their kissing activities," he says.