Salivary glucose as a diagnostic tool in Type II diabetes mellitus: A case-control study

Background and Objectives: The prevalence of diabetes mellitus is increasing steadily in India. Understanding blood glucose level is the key to both diagnosis and management of diabetes mellitus. However, there is an on-going need for improvements in noninvasive, point-of-care tools for the diagnosis and prognosis of diabetes. Assessing a relationship between the blood glucose level and its concentration in other body fluids such as the saliva can help in developing a conservative method for blood sugar assessment replacing venous blood sampling. Diabetes mellitus is known to cause changes in salivary composition. Hence, this study was undertaken to evaluate the relationship of blood glucose level with salivary glucose in diabetic and nondiabetic patients. Materials and Methods: The study sample included 100 diabetic patients and 100 nondiabetic patients aged above 35 years of age. Fasting blood and salivary glucose levels were measured in the two groups. Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to assess the correlation of blood glucose with salivary glucose in the two groups. Results: The results of the study revealed an increase in the level of fasting salivary glucose in diabetics compared to that of nondiabetic patients. It also showed a highly significant positive correlation between fasting salivary glucose and serum glucose in both diabetic patients and in controls. Conclusion: From this study, it can be concluded that fasting salivary glucose level can be used as a noninvasive diagnostic, as well as a monitoring tool to assess the glycemic status of Type II diabetes mellitus patients.