What's in a kiss?

Well often quite a lot actually. Do you ever think about kissing someone who might have just eaten a sandwich? or drunk beer? or been scoffing cookies?

But seriously, think about it. A good slobbery snog just after someone has eaten something containing wheat is bound to rub off on you just a bit. Of course it depends on just how severe your allergy is as to whether you notice any problem during or afterwards.

Allergy attacks from contact with people having eaten a potential allergen are not uncommon, and about 6 years ago there was a report in an American medical journal about just one such incident.

According to the report a diner at a restaurant choked on a piece of food that lodged in his throat. It caused him to pass out. There was a doctor eating in the restaurant who came to his aid and managed to remove the offending blockage, and then proceeded to give mouth to mouth resuscitation to the unfortunate diner.

The problem was that the doctor had been eating food containing nuts, and the unconscious man had a nut allergy, unbeknown to anyone at the restaurant.

The diner suffered an anaphylactic reaction to the nuts that the doctor had been eating and died.

Now this is a very extreme example and we certainly don't want everyone to start avoiding kissing their loved ones just in case they've been at the cookie jar, so don't start ducking everytime you're in line for a passionate embrace.

It really does depend on how severe your allergy to wheat or gluten (or indeed any other products they've eaten) is. The majority of people will never probably have any problem at all.

So, what's in a kiss? If you don't know then keep it chaste just in case, no tongues!