Health 16 Jun 2026

Live with a partner? You may be sharing more microbes than you think

A large study finds you may share about a quarter of your oral and gut microbes with the people you live with. Should you worry? We asked the experts.

5 min read B1

B1 Version

Click any word for its Thai meaning.

0:00 0:00
A lot changes when you move in with your partner. when you go to bed, what you eat for breakfast, and. Possibly your microbiome. the mishmash of bacteria that live in and on you. A study published this week in Cell Press Blue finds that cohabitating romantic partners share about 44% of. Their oral microbiome and 19% of their gut microbiome. First author and computational biologist Vitor Heidrich of the University of Trento, Italy says that his lab was. Investigating potential sources of the microbes inside us "because before birth we don't have a microbiome, so. They must be coming from somewhere." Previous evidence has existed that people who live together share microbiomes. But the new study. which analyzed microbiome DNA data of 430 people across 207 households in Italy and. Fiji. quantifies the transmission rate by relationship and includes the oral microbiome as well.

Save & Review

Only words saved from this story appear here.