[paul.fr]

If i kiss someone, can they catch a disease from me? Also, could either of us pass on antibodies that may help fight a disease?


[MOD - Subject altered to make it a clear question - CS]

[blakestyger]

Herpes simplex?

[Carol-A]

Glandular fever... also called the kissing disease!

Of course you have to have the disease first.... diseases don't just spontaneously appear as a result of kissing.. []

[MayoFlyFarmer]

it doesn't do any good for them to pass their actual  antibodies, you need the ability to make the antibodies yourself to aquire immunity to a disease.  the only way to achieve this is to be exposed to the antigen.

[another_someone]

As Karen Carpenter sang:

What do you get when you kiss a guy

You get enough germs to catch pneumonia

After you do, he'll never phone you

[turnipsock]

I think if I 'kissed a guy' I would get called a 'Dirty Bertie'.

[Simulated]

Glandular fever... also called the kissing disease!

Is that also Mono?

[another_someone]

Glandular fever... also called the kissing disease!

Is that also Mono?

No, Mono is the open source C# compiler - just been looking at that. [] []

[Carol-A]

Yes, in the USA it is called Mono.

[RD]

it doesn't do any good for them to pass their actual antibodies

Antibody transfusion is used to treat infectious disease.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiserum

[chris]

Yes, that's true: patients can be injected with doses of antibodies to provide so-called "passive protection" against certain diseases. The most common examples include "ZIg" - zoster immunoglobulin, which is given to pregnant women who have been exposed to chicken pox but have not themselves had the disease, and "anti-D" which is given post-partum to rhesus-negative mothers with a rhesus-positive partner.

Other examples of immunoglobulins include anti-hepatitis B globulin, which is given under certain circumstances to people exposed to hepatitis B; anti-rabies immunoglobulin (HRIg) for people bitten by bats (and other potentially rapid animals), and human normal immunoglobulin (HNIg), which is used in a variety of conditions including autoimmune diseases and in patients with low antibody levels.

So antibodies can be used therapeutically and need not necessarily be an individual's own antibodies!

Chris

[RD]

Kissing originated from the action of parents passing masticated food to infants, mouth-to-mouth.

Could the parental saliva provide some passive immunity ?,
or would the antibodies in the saliva be destroyed by the child's digestive system ?.

[I have a new product idea for Heinz: "pre-chewed baby-food", chewed 57 times of course  []]

[chris]

Very good! Have you spoken with Heinz about this...(he asks, dialling their number with the other hand)...


In terms of passive immunity passing from mammalian parent to child this definitely happens, and it definitely happens by mouth, but the source is probably not saliva.

When any baby reaches 30 weeks of gestation the placenta, which connects the foetus to its mother's uterus, begins to express a structure called an Fc receptor which is like antibody velcro. As maternal blood passes through the placenta these Fc molecules grab IgG-class immunoglobulins from the mother's blood and add them to the foetal circulation. This way, when the baby is born 2 months later, it emerges pre-charged with antibodies which can provide protection whilst the infant's own immune system slowly gathers momentum.

Since the baby will be living in the same enviroment that its mother has been inhabiting (probably) these antibodies will be able to recognise and neutralise the majority of the pathogens that are circulating at the time.

Another way in which babies receive "passive" immunological protection is by breast feeding. The first milk a mother produces, called colostrum, is enriched for antibody. A newborn's gut lining is much more permeable to large molecules like antibodies and these can be absorbed from the intestine and added to the bloodstream. Later, the presence of these sorts of secretory antibodies (IgA usually) helps to provide protection inside the gut whenever the baby feeds.

There is a bit of IgA in saliva, but the amount is almost certainly too small to make much of a difference to the baby.

Chris

[RD]

More on the immunological consequences of snogging...

Kissing and Peanut Allergy Dangerous

Charlene Laino

March 6, 2006 (Miami Beach) -- A kiss is not just a kiss -- at least for people with food allergies. So say researchers who found that people with peanut allergies may be putting themselves at risk of potentially life-threatening allergic reactions if they kiss someone who has recently eaten peanuts.

And there's no quick fix: Brushing your teeth or chewing gum after the nutty meal won't help, the study shows. In fact, the only real solution is skipping the nuts altogether or at least waiting a few hours before kissing -- not always easy for young teens in love.

"The best advice to the partner of a peanut-allergic person is to avoid peanuts as well," says researcher Jennifer M. Maloney, MD, a fellow in allergy at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. "If you can't do that, the next safety strategy is to wait several hours and eat several meals without peanuts before kissing your partner."

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/525008