We've all been in a crowded place and seen someone sneezing or coughing nearby. You do your best to get away from them, but somehow they always end up right there beside you. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased our collective use of masks and other protective measures that have reduced the transmission of many viruses beyond coronaviruses, including influenza. 

Researchers are now finding that there are specific qualities of saliva that might change how easy it is to catch certain pathogens. You may think that everyone's saliva is the same, but our physiological state changes our saliva! If you're stressed or dehydrated, for example, your saliva makeup is different than it would be if you weren't. Saliva thickness also differs between genders: women tend to have thinner saliva, and less of it than men. 

University of Florida researchers have found that what compounds are in your saliva, your salivary flow rate (how much saliva you produce), thickness, and other features make the saliva able to travel further when you cough or sneeze. This comes into play when we talk about respiratory viruses like the one that causes COVID-19, which are transmitted by respiratory droplets. 

With these suggestions, it may be possible to alter your saliva to decrease your ability to pass potentially deadly bugs to others. Could simply keeping yourself hydrated and being less stressed reduce virus and bacterial transmission? University of Florida researchers say very possibly!