Non-invasive Glucose Test Using Saliva as an Alternative Detector for Diabetes Mellitus

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Philippines has a 6.1 prevalence rate of diabetes mellitus which means that six million Filipinos are currently diagnosed as diabetic according to Litonjua (2016). Moreover, he stated that this figure can be doubled to 12 million or even more by 2040 because of undiagnosed diabetes cases. In addition to this, according to Department of Health, diabetes mellitus is one of the main causes of disease-related deaths in the country. inthis study, the researchers thought of a non-invasive way to test the glucose on salivary samples.

METHODS

Purposive sampling was used. Twenty-five diabetic and 25 non-diabetic individuals with human informed consent forms, ages 21 years old and above, male and female, were included in the study. The blood glucose levels of the participants were read using blood glucose meters. Five milliliters of saliva were collected, then 25 microliters (μL) of it was mixed with 750 μL of Profame Diagnostic Reagent and was boiled in order to activate the glucose in each sample. Each sample was then placed in V-1100D spectrophotometer, having the absorbance of each salivary sample read. To get the salivary glucose levels, the absorbance of saliva was divided by the absorbance of the standard and was multiplied by 100.

RESULTS

Paired t-test was used to determine the significant difference between salivary glucose level and blood glucose level. For the significant difference of salivary and blood glucose levels of diabetic individuals, the computed t is 24.2083. On the other hand, for the significant difference of salivary and blood glucose level of non-diabetic individuals, the computed t is 34.9306. Pearson Correlation was used to correlate the salivary glucose level and blood glucose level. For the correlation of salivary and blood glucose level of diabetic individuals, the computed R is .9449. On the other hand, for the salivary and blood glucose levels of non-diabetic individuals, the computed R is .6001. Using the gathered data, the study came up with a suggested range of glucose levels of saliva which was 40 to 65 mg/dL for non-diabetic individuals and 66 mg/dL and above for diabetic individuals.

DISCUSSIONS

The results showed that there is a strong positive correlation between blood and salivary glucose levels among diabetic individuals and a moderate positive correlation between blood and salivary glucose level of non-diabetic individuals. This suggests that saliva can be utilized to detect glucose levels, especially those who are diabetic.