Great news for partners of celiac sufferers: you can kiss your partner without making them sick to their stomach. Since about 1 percent of the population has celiac disease and the symptoms can be dramatic, concern about inadvertent gluten transmission via kiss in not insignificant.
Many partners of people with the condition have expressed concern about inadvertently transferring gluten to their loved one via kiss. A new study, presented at DDW2025 (Digestive Disease Week) in San Diego should put those worries to rest. Although people have asked about the possibility, there was no hard science to back up any recommendations whether to kiss or not to kiss.
“Everyone worries about whether gluten is getting into their food at a restaurant, but no one really looked at what happens when you kiss afterwards,” Anne Lee, a professor at Columbia University and an author of the paper, said in a press release.
Celiac Disease and Ingesting Gluten
Celiac disease is an autoimmune condition characterized by abdominal pain, indigestion, and diarrhea. Ingesting gluten causes intestinal damage, even if it doesn’t trigger immediate symptoms. Gluten is a combination of proteins often found in wheat, barley, and rye. It helps food maintain shape and is sometimes the glue that holds things like bread together.
To investigate if partners could kiss after eating gluten, researchers recruited 10 couples, each of which had one partner with celiac’s disease. The study was broken into two sessions. In each session, the non-celiac partner consumed 10 saltine crackers, then smooched their partner for 10 seconds.
In one session, they paused five minutes between cracker consumption and kiss. In each session, the non-celiac partner ate 10 saltine crackers, and then the couple kissed for 10 seconds. In one session, the partners waited five minutes before the kiss, and in the other, they drank 4 ounces of water before kissing.
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Detecting Gluten
After each kiss in each scenario, researchers measured the gluten level in the partners saliva. In both cases and in the majority of participants, the gluten amount detected was minimal — under 20 parts per million. That is well under the 50 mg level that is intolerable to people with celiac’s disease.
“For clinicians, we can now say to patients, ‘You don’t have to go to extreme measures,’” Lee said in the release. “Patients with celiac disease can be more relaxed, knowing that the risk of gluten cross-contact through kissing a partner who has consumed gluten can be brought down to safe levels if food is followed by a small glass of water.”
This article is not offering medical advice and should be used for informational purposes only.
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Before joining Discover Magazine, Paul Smaglik spent over 20 years as a science journalist, specializing in U.S. life science policy and global scientific career issues. He began his career in newspapers, but switched to scientific magazines. His work has appeared in publications including Science News, Science, Nature, and Scientific American.
