Saliva as a biomarker for estimation of glucose level in healthy individuals, a systematic review

Pratheek Venkatesh Shanbhag; Mithra Nidarsh Hegde; Shruthi Attavar

Pratheek Venkatesh Shanbhag Department of Conservative Dentistry and Endodontics, AB Shetty Memorial Institute of Dental Sciences, NITTE Deemed to be University, Mangaluru, India
Mithra Nidarsh Hegde Department of Conservative Dentistry and Endodontics, AB Shetty Memorial Institute of Dental Sciences, NITTE Deemed to be University, Mangaluru, India
Shruthi Attavar Department of Conservative Dentistry and Endodontics, AB Shetty Memorial Institute of Dental Sciences, NITTE Deemed to be University, Mangaluru, India

Keywords: salivary biomarker, salivary glucose, blood glucose, healthy individuals and non-invasive method

Abstract

According to the International Diabetes Federation, if no actions are taken, the number of people with diabetes could grow to 629 million globally by 2045. The most widely used tool for diabetes detection and diagnosis is currently the measurement of serum glucose levels. Saliva can be a reliable non-invasive diagnostic biomarker for determining glycaemic status in individuals. The study’s objective is to systematically analyze articles to determine whether saliva can be used as a biomarker to test glycemia as a non-invasive process for correlating salivary glucose and blood glucose in healthy subjects. The study’s question was, “Can saliva be used as a potential alternative biomarker to detect glycemia?” An electronic search was conducted in the PubMed, Google scholar & Wiley online library databases using MeSH terms – “salivary biomarker”, “salivary glucose”, “blood glucose”, “ healthy individuals”, and “adults” from the year 2015 to 2020. The quality of the study was assessed using the QUADAS-2 (Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2) tool. A total of 4680 articles were retrieved from the electronic database folder. After a complete evaluation of the title, the abstract and the full text of the articles, 16 were selected for review. Using the QUADAS-2 tool, all the articles were classified as low-risk bias. The findings suggest a positive correlation between the amount of salivary glucose and blood glucose from the data obtained from the studies which have been retrieved. The salivary and blood glucose amount confirms its use in healthy individuals as a non-invasive diagnostic biomarker for finding glycaemic status.