Assessment of Salivary Lipid Profile Parameters in Healthy and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Patients

Introduction: Recent studies suggest that saliva could be functionally equivalent to serum in reflecting the physiological state of the body. Studies are being conducted to develop saliva as a tool for the screening and monitoring of chronic systemic diseases like Diabetes mellitus. Dyslipidaemia is most commonly assessed by laboratory lipid profile analysis in serum sample. This study is a step towards validation of saliva as a tool for the screening and monitoring of dyslipidaemia. Aim: To measure, compare and correlate the serum and salivary lipid profile parameters {Total Cholesterol (TC), High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) and Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL)} in Type 2 Diabetes mellitus patients and healthy individuals. Materials and Methods: The case control study was carried out for a period of one year i.e., from March 2019 to February 2020. The study comprised of 200 participants between the ages 3170 years. The participants included 100 diabetic subjects with a history of diabetes for at least three years and 100 age matched subjects as controls. TC, HDL and LDL was estimated by using kits based on spectrophotometric principle. Statistical analysis was done on Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 16.0. Mean, Standard deviation, Pearson's correlation coefficient, along with regression analysis was carried out and compared between the groups. Results: There is a significant difference between the salivary TC, HDL and LDL levels in healthy individuals and diabetics. A strong and significant positive correlation of serum TC (Pearson correlation coefficient 'r'=0.87 for controls, 0.66 for diabetics, p<0.01), HDL (Pearson correlation coefficient 'r'=0.78 for controls, 0.88 for diabetics, p-value <0.01) and LDL (Pearson correlation coefficient 'r'= 0.81 for controls, 0.87 for diabetics, p-value < 0.01) levels with its respective salivary levels was obtained in all the participants (controls and diabetics) of the study. The regression coefficient was calculated and a formula was derived for prediction of serum lipid profile parameters using their respective salivary levels. Conclusion: Standardisation of the techniques for the estimation of salivary lipid profile parameters, including triglycerides and Very LDL (VLDL) and setting up a reference range will also make it useful in clinical practice.