Saliva diagnosis as a disease predictor

Abstract

Background: Saliva, the most readily available body fluid, is the product of genes which are in constant activity throughout life. Measurement of saliva can predict the onset of some diseases years before their accumulation in vulnerable tissues causes clinical signs to appear. The purpose of this study was is to demonstrate current applications of saliva analysis and to predict and prevent disease progression. Methods: We measured levels of Abeta42, C‐reactive proteins (CRPs), and tumornecrosis factors (TNFs) in saliva from both healthy and fatal diseased cases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and coronary heart disease by ELISA‐mediated techniques. We also immunostained human tissue sections with antibodies specific to these proteins to demonstrate the data are comparable. Results: We found all the proteins expressed constantly in saliva from healthy controls but increased in diseased cases. This was accompanied by data from immunohistochemistry. It was also found that these proteins wereexpressed in high amounts in some healthy controls, which reflects high risk for the onset of diseases such as AD and heart diseases.Conclusions: It is concluded that measuring changes in essential gene products in saliva can predict onset of fatal diseases and open the door to effective protection measures, thus preventing premature death.