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Why a kiss is better than a handshake when you want to avoid a cold
Last updated at 00:22am on 15.01.08
A kiss could be safer for your health than the humble handshake
But if you want to stay healthy it's time to pucker up.
The continental-style peck on the cheek is far more hygienic than the trusty British handshake, according to health experts.
While a quick air kiss - or two - somewhere in the cheek region is a relatively-germ free affair, hand-shaking it seems is another matter.
No matter how clean one person keeps their hands, unfortunately there is just no guarantee that the person on the other end of the greeting maintains such stringent standards.
And with flu and bugs like norovirus particularly rampant - a quick rinse under the tap is not enough.
More than three million Britons called in sick last week. Many of them will have been infected after touching someone else's hands and might have been better off kissing friends and relatives instead.
The greetings advice is back up by a new study of hand hygiene.
Professor Sally Bloomfield, from the London School of Hygiene and chairman of the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene, which carried out the research, said: "The hands are critical in the chain of infection as they transmit infections from surfaces to people and between people.
"Shaking hands is the main form of physical contact with each other but you don't know what the other person has been touching before you greet them. People avoid kissing each other when they have a cold, but in fact they are more likely to pass on an infection by shaking someone's hand."
The hygiene findings were published recently in the American Journal of Infection Control.
Experts carried out a detailed report of hand hygiene and said the fight against all types of infections, from colds and flu to stomach bugs and MRSA, begins at home.
The common saying "I won't kiss you, I've got a cold," does not usually extend to handshakes. But the report warns that it should.
Cold and flu viruses can be spread via the hands so that family members become infected when they rub their nose or eyes.
The report details how germs that cause stomach infections such as salmonella, campylobacter and norovirus can also circulate directly from person to person via our hands.
Some people also carry MRSA or C.difficile without even knowing, which can be passed around via hand and other surfaces.
Professor Bloomfield said: "It's important to know that good hand hygiene can really reduce the risks. What is important is not just knowing that we need to wash our hands but knowing when to wash them."
As well as washing rigorously with soap and water, experts recommend carrying an alcohol-based hand sanitizer for when it's not possible to get to a sink.
Surfaces from which the hands become contaminated, such as food contact surfaces, door handles, tap handles, toilet seats and cleaning cloths also need regular cleaning.
As for greetings. Experts are agreed that the French air-kiss which avoids contact all together is best. But tread carefully, kissing etiquette can be thorny.
An earlier study revealed that he way you turn your head when you greet someone identifies how emotional you are.
It found that bout 80 per cent of men and women turned their heads to the right when kissing cheek-to-cheek, a gesture of real feeling. But the rest, who leaned to the left used less emotional parts of their brain and were not really making a warm gesture at all, the scientists said.
They also identified air kisses as an unemotional type of greeting.
