Fitness Files: Even friends might not want to share everything

My mom used to say, “Don’t eat after anyone or share drinks. You’ll catch something!”

Maybe it was the ominous “something” that stuck with me. I still feel a twinge every time someone hands me a drink and insists, “Taste this, it’s delicious!”

Then there’s my birthday friends’ celebrations. We polish off individual entrees at the restaurant of birthday girl’s choice. Next, the server parades in with a candle-lit gratis dessert along with a second sugary treat we’ve selected through consensus. A pile of forks comes with the desserts, which scoot along the table in about three revolutions, as each of us combine our spit, scooping up forkfuls of sweetness.

I’ve never caught a cold post luncheon. We’re a robust group. Still it’s gross as the melted morsel shows up and each friend shoves in a fork, consuming the Flourless Ice-cream Mud Cake down to the last drop. I’d be a bad sport to pass on the dessert ritual, but mom’s words echo.

So I went looking for expert opinions on the subject. WebDental’s Dr. Todd Welch wrote in September 2010 “Be Careful Whom You Kiss,” listing an eye-popping number of diseases from the exchange of saliva: the cold virus; mononucleosis; herpes simplex or fever blisters — even after healing; “hand foot and mouth disease”; and, yikes, Hepatitis-B when in direct contact with a mucus membrane (inside mouth).

Dessert suddenly sounds even less appetizing when Welch adds tooth decay, its main bacteria being streptococcus mutans, transmissible by shared objects such as eating utensils. No, I haven’t caught any colds, but after years without cavities, I’ve had a few — caught from my friends?

Dr. Thomas Connelly’s Huffington Post blog, “Sharing Drinks with Others: Can I Actually Catch a Disease?,” answers his title question with a three-letter word: Yes. In fact, Connelly, a doctor of dental surgery, calls it “a resounding yes.” His list overlaps Welsh’s and adds to it.

Connelly’s main saliva-transmittable maladies are strep throat, the common cold, mumps and “the rarer (yet deadly) meningitis.”

Connelly’s reading of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website includes the information that Hepatitis B is capable of causing infection for seven days, surviving outside the body, and his interpretation is that it can be transmitted on a fork. Sounds like a list of parties I don’t want to be invited to.

My readers know I am not a health professional. I look for responsible sources of information, having a personal commitment not to sensationalize the unlikely possibly of, in this case, disease transmittal. On the subject of “food sharing,” I find surprisingly few articles compared to information on specific diseases I’ve researched. Yet, common sense tells me it may be a frequent cause of illness — not just friends sharing birthday cake, but food handled by thousands of hands belonging to rushed restaurant staff.

So, realistically, we all know we can catch our friend’s cold. What are the chances of something as dire as meningitis? I will focus on WebMd’s section on “bacterial meningitis,” since it is “usually passed from one person to another through infected saliva.”

“Streptococcus pneumonia is a common type of bacteria that causes a number of illnesses besides meningitis, such as ear and and sinus infections and pneumonia.”

“Neisseria meningitidis is a bacteria you can have in your throat without getting sick. But you can pass on to others, who may then get seriously ill with meningitis.”

From all I read, I gather that healthy adults (versus infants and those with a compromised immune system) are unlikely to “catch” meningitis. Yet WebMD plainly states, “Unlike other types of bacteria, you can get meningitis … by eating contaminated food.”

In my own life, when a friend says, “Oh no, that guy sneezed right next to us,” I say answer with confidence: “Don’t worry, we won’t get it.”

My personal impression after years of dessert sharing is “I won’t get it.” Yet, sticking someone’s germ load directly into my mouth sounds downright unappetizing right now.

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Newport Beach resident CARRIE LUGER SLAYBACK is a marathoner in her 70s who brought home first places in LA Marathons 2013 and 2014 and the Carlsbad Marathon 2015. She lives in Newport Beach.