Saliva Is More Than Just Spit! It’s…

...a great diagnostic tool to screen for many things that have a presence in the body. It is a known fact that people see their dentists more frequently than they see their physicians. So, in the future, dentists, who may see people more often than a physician, can test a patient’s saliva and screen it for toxins and drugs in the body, some cancer biomarkers, diabetic problems, and many other disease conditions, including the presence of certain bacteria that can cause gum disease and MRSA. 

This burgeoning field is called salivaomics. A person’s approximate age can be ascertained by studying the amount of molecular methylation (which increases with age) in a saliva sample. Smokers, alcoholics, and other substance abusers can see evidence of how their lifestyle choices actually make negative changes in their genetic health with the help of information gleaned from this testing.

AIDS antibody and nutritional deficiency testings can be done using salivary secretions.

Saliva is one of the most important fluids of the body. It helps to maintain the oral cavity by lubricating our total mouth, from the teeth and gums to the cheeks and tongue, with a protective, moistening film. It starts the physical digestive process by helping to break up the food with the action of chewing, and starts the chemical digestive processes by coating the food with enzymes.

Saliva also wets the bolus of food being masticated so it can be swallowed easier, thereby preventing choking. Its presence in adequate amounts helps us to speak clearly with the proper enunciation. Saliva is made up of about 99% water, but what a difference that one percent makes!

There are five major salivary glands in the mouth, one in both of the cheeks (the parotids), one on both sides of the back of the tongue (the submandibulars), and one under the front portion of the tongue (the sublingual).

Minor salivary glands are seen in many areas of the mouth. People, on average make about one liter of saliva a day, more or less.

There are hand-held devices in the market today that can reliably and quickly analyze saliva samples for various bacteria and drugs, and some of their metabolites. One such smart-phone-sized screening device, which goes by the name Vantix, gives off a signal when certain substances are detected by an antibody-coated electrode. It can even test for multiple things at once.

There may be some shortcomings, however, with some of these emerging technologies. If there is too much blood or other contaminants in the saliva samples, false negative and false positive results can become problematic.

There are definite advantages to collecting and testing saliva. It takes less time to analyze a sample. Obtaining a saliva sample is easier and less painful than giving blood, and it’s more difficult to contaminate the person handling it.

A Salivaomics Knowledge Base (SKB) is being constructed to manage data and help coordinate saliva research progression.

May you have many …moist, glossy, teeth-licking…smiles!