Salivary biomarkers for diagnosing renal functions in patients with type 2 diabetes: A correlative study

Abstract

Introduction and Aim: One of the major complications of the diabetes is End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD). Thus, it is of utmost importance to conduct research on the diagnosis and management of diabetes mellitus (DM), as it is considered as a major public health issue. Both blood and urine samples are generally used in the diagnosis of DM. Though blood offers more advantages as a diagnostic tool in DM, there is a scope for the development of a non-invasive method for the regular monitoring of glucose and renal function test, since venipuncture induces psychological stress in the patients. The aim of the current study was to correlate blood and salivary renal biomarkers. Materials and Methods: We classified the study subjects into three groups, healthy (Group 1), Type 2 diabetic (T2D) patients without nephropathy (Group 2) and T2D patients with nephropathy (Group 3). We carried out estimation of various parameters such as glucose and renal function tests in both blood and saliva of all the three groups. Results: This study confirmed that many of the parameters studied in both blood and saliva showed good positive correlation. The changes in serum parameters are in agreement with that of the salivary parameters in healthy, T2D without nephropathy and T2D with nephropathy groups. Conclusion: This study corroborated that the saliva can be a very potential indicative means to diagnose and manage diabetes and its complications. Therefore, saliva can be effectively used as a sample for measuring and controlling diabetes in near future.