Serum and salivary glucose levels in diabetes mellitus: A review on the quest for diagnostics

Abstract

The salivary fluid has an old history of study, but its physiological importance has only been recognized recently. In the past 50 years, the pace of salivary research has accelerated with the advent of new techniques that illuminated the biochemical and physicochemical properties of saliva. The recent introduction of molecular biology opens up, once again, new vistas and a new search of the role of salivary fluid as a potential diagnostic tool which has an added advantage of being noninvasive. The role of saliva in the diagnosis as well as monitoring of glycemic control has also been attracting the attention of clinical researchers in recent times although results have been conflicting. The present review presents such insight into the possible use of salivary fluid for the monitoring of serum glucose levels and in the detection of glycemic control in diabetic patients with the evidence of its reliability based on the existing literature.