The Surprising Way Kissing Benefits Your Teeth

Everyone remembers their first kiss. Whether it was a peck at the age of 15 or a full-on smooch sesh during college, it's something that stays with you for the rest of your life. But did you know that every kiss you've had since then may actually have benefited your teeth (as well as your heart)? 

Yep, according to Andréa Demirjian, author of Kissing: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about One of Life's Sweetest Pleasures, the saliva produced during a kiss (or two) helps prevent cavities. "When you're kissing, you're secreting more saliva in your mouth," she told Stylist. "That's the mechanism that washes away the plaque on your teeth that leads to cavities." And New York-based cosmetic dentist Sivan Finkel agrees, explaining to Glamour, "The extra saliva helps remineralize teeth and protect them from acid attacks." 

But combating tooth decay isn't the only benefit kissing your boo has.

Believe it or not, kissing also fights signs of aging. "The higher blood flow increases the number of small blood vessels helping to nourish the machinery of the skin," Ryan Neinstein, M.D., a plastic surgeon in New York City, told Glamour. "In order to move your lips, your whole face has to get involved, which increases elasticity. Have you seen face yoga or facercises? There are yogis, estheticians, and dermatologists training women to do exercises for their face to stimulate collagen and lessen the need for a face-lift. Passionate kissing can lead to firming the face, especially its bottom half." If that's not a good enough excuse to start kissing your loved one more, we don't know what is!

Better still, some kisses can burn up to 16 calories. "Kissing and lovemaking can be a vigorous exercise if you're fully engaged," Demirjian told CNN. "You need to have a passionate kiss [in order to burn those calories], but it doesn't have to be a 10-hour makeout session." Better get to work!