A correlative study of salivary and plasma glucose levels in type 2 diabetic patients with and without complications

Abstract

Introduction: There are contradictory reports on using salivary glucose in diagnosis of diabetes mellitus. This study has made an attempt to estimate the salivary glucose levels in diabetic patients with and without complications and correlate them with plasma glucose as a marker of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Method: This was a Cross sectional observational study. Thirty eight type 2 diabetic patients without complications and thirty eight type 2 diabetic patients with either microvascular or macrovascular complications were the subjects of this study. Age and sex-matched normal healthy individuals were included as controls. Plasma and salivary glucose levels were estimated by spectrophotometric method. Results: We observed significantly higher glucose levels in plasma and saliva, in diabetic patients with complications, in comparison to those without complications, and normal healthy controls. There was significant positive correlation between salivary glucose and plasma glucose among all the subjects of the study. Non-linear regression analysis shows exponential relationship between plasma and salivary glucose. Conclusion: Salivary glucose analysis offers noninvasive, sensitive method for assessment of severity of diabetic complications with suitability for repeated sampling. Further studies with larger sample size need to be taken up to establish salivary glucose as a marker of diabetes mellitus. Key words: Plasma glucose, Salivary glucose, Type 2 diabetes mellitus