Uh oh, this isn’t good news.

Most people know that smoking is bad for your health. Prissy queens who get all vocal about someone lighting up in their presence don’t seem to realize that too is bad for your health, but that’s not the point of today’s post. Though if you are counted among those annoying people (the whiners, not the smokers) by the time you finish reading this article you may learn you owe smokers a thanks instead of your condemnation. You may even decide to only kiss smokers in the future.

Culturally, over 90% of the people in the world kiss. Kissing helps produce saliva, which is good for dental health. It also raises levels of oxytocin, the body’s natural calming chemical – at least in men, not so much in women but then who wants to kiss fish anyway – and is also thought to increase endorphins, the body’s ‘happy’ chemical. Plus swapping saliva is said to increase dopamine, which encourages romantic attachment. If you are into that sort of thing. Thanks to philematologists, we know that passionate kissing burns between 6 and 26 calories a minute – in fact, according to one study three passionate kisses a day will help you lose a pound in weight – that despite when two people kiss they exchange between 10 million and a billion bacteria, kissing someone as a greeting is actually healthier than a handshake (because you don’t know what someone has been touching before they shake your hand – not that you’d know where that mouth has been either), and that kissing is such an integral part of the propagation of the species that our lips have special neurons that help them find other lips in the dark. At least I think those were his lips.

As an expression of love, kissing is the climax of every great love story and an experience that has motivated poets and musicians for thousands of years; the kiss is celebrated in art, movies, and literature. Pop music owes its existence to kissing (though fans of County & Western music should note that a study in the Archives of Oral Biology found that kissing your dog can transfer bacteria that causes gum disease). The average person spends 336 hours of their life kissing because it feels good and, if done right, leads to even better activities. That feel even better. It’s no wonder we spend so much time locking lips or pursuing the opportunity to do so. But is kissing the end-all it is trumpeted to be? Is swapping saliva really good for both your emotional and physical health? And is kissing a man the quickest way to getting to where your mouth really wants to be?

Yup, smells like science to me.

The good news is that there are far more fans of kissing within the scientific community than there are those who think it is a disgusting act. The bad news is that at least one group of researchers has shown than despite all of the evidence of the benefits of kissing, doing it right – like you really mean it – is deadly. Kissing can shorten your life-span. Even worse ,’cuz who wants to kiss a 90-year-old anyway, is that no matter how attracted you may be to some guy, your first kiss could easily be your last. A study by Gordon Gallup Jr., professor of psychology at the University of Albany, showed that 59 percent of men reported that after feeling attracted to another man initially, the attraction ended after the first kiss. Yikes! But let’s deal with that kissing can kill you thingy first.

Obviously, kissing the wrong guy can be bad for your health. Especially if he has a jealous partner who likes to play with knives. Smooching is also a great way to pass on pulmonary tuberculosis, flus, parotitis, scarlet fever, syphilis, and nettle rash. But some scientist claim that even puckering up with a healthy partner might not be good for you.

When you kiss like you mean it, your pulse rate increases by five pumps a minute, your blood pressure rises, you breathe faster, your circulation speeds up, some of your white blood cells disintegrate, your blood vessels dilate, your cheeks flush, and your pituitary and adrenal glands start pumping hormones into your system at an increased rate. Not to mention what it does to your best buddy. Kissing puts an enormous strain on your heart. And on your jeans. So much so that researchers at the University at Albany say that every time you kiss, you shorten your life-span by three minutes. Smoking a cigarette, by comparison, shortens your life span by 11 minutes. Ergo smoking a cigarette is healthier for you than kissing a guy 4 times

Okay, so I never claimed to be that good at math. So maybe trading in passionate kissing for a smoking habit isn’t all that good of an idea. Especially in light of research coming out of Stockholm University that shows that the lack of kissing is one of the traits that separates serial rapists from single- victim rapists. ‘Cuz you wouldn’t want to be stereotyped. And according to a survey done in Britain, ‘ashtray mouth’ is the biggest kissing turn-off (followed closely by cold sores, body odor, and dry lips – bad teeth were considered a lesser evil than your partner chewing gum during your kiss, but then that survey was done in the U,K, so . . . .). The fact is that as pleasurable as kissing is – at least among non-serial rapists – it can nip a relationship in the bud as easily as it can spark a romance. But then since you are a guy, that’s not necessarily bad news.

According to Dr. Gallup’s study a kiss transmits smells, tastes, sound, and tactile signals that all affect how people perceive each other and, ultimately, whether they will want to kiss again. While we don’t often think of them in that way, our lips are our body’s most exposed erogenous zone (unless you are a serial-rapist). Packed with sensitive nerve endings, even a light brush sends a cascade of information to our brains helping us to decide whether we want to continue and what might happen next. “A kiss can’t make a relationship, but clearly the evidence shows it can break or kill a relationship,” Gallup says.

Looking at a sample of more than 1,000 college students, Gallup and his colleagues found that women tend to emphasize kissing more than men, and are much more likely to insist on kissing before a sexual encounter. On the other hand, over half of the guys in Gallup’s study (53 per cent) said they would have sex without first having kissed their date. Men are also much more likely to have sex with someone who’s a bad kisser. They also say a good kiss includes their partner making moaning noises. Just in case you are taking notes.

And not that you’d care, but women kiss to assess the commitment of a mate – is he really that into me? – while men kiss as a means to an end. And we all know what end kissing is a means to. Gallup’s study also determined that men like their kisses wetter and with more tongue: To be precise, 33 per cent wetter and with 11 per cent more tongue, on average, than women do. So among men, doing it right – which does not mean which direction you turn your head when kissing ‘cuz roughly twice as many people turn their heads to the right when they go in for a kiss than to the left – is less important to men than using lots of tongue. Or as long as you are willing to put out, you can skip kissing altogether.

Not that not kissing means you’d never enjoy the thrill that smooching brings. According to research carried out by Dr. David Lewis of the University of Sussex you can experience an even more intense and longer lasting buzz than kissing produces thanks to chocolate. In fact, chocolate beats kissing hands down when it comes to providing a long-lasting body and brain buzz; A buzz that, in many cases, lasts four times as long as the most passionate kiss.

Dr. Lewis found that although kissing sets the heart pounding, the effect does not last as long as that seen from eating chocolate, which increased heart rates from a resting rate of about 60 beats per minute to 140. His study also found that as chocolate starts melting in your mouth, all regions of your brain receive a boost far more intense and longer lasting than the excitement of a kiss.

So rather than swapping spit with the next hottie whose very presence curls your toes, you might want to avoid the dangers of sucking at kissing and just pop a Hershey’s kiss in your mouth instead. You’ll get a bigger rush, and can then get down to what really matters quicker. And live an extra three minutes to boot.

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