Diabetes is becoming an epidemic in some countries, and the search is on for better non-invasive tests for the disease.

Charles Roberts, Srinivasa Nagalla, Paturi V. Rao, and colleagues at DiabetOmics, LLC, and Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences University (India) are looking at saliva as the answer.  Early diagnosis of type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes is vital if complications of the cardiovascular and renal systems is to be avoided.

The team looked at Salivary proteomes in the saliva of patients with type 2 diabetes and normal patients to “characterize” salivary proteomes**.

The team them  examined the levels of these proteins in patients with pre-diabetes.

Their results suggested that the disease is progressive and develops over time and that the salivary “bio-markers” may allow detection of diabetes and its onset.

The team are looking at whether saliva analysis could be an alternative to the current lancing and testing of glucose in blood samples. 

**According to Wikipedia, a “proteome is the entire complement of proteins expressed by a genome, cell, tissue or organism. More specifically, it is the set expressed proteins at a given time under defined conditions. The term is a portmanteau of proteins and genome”.

Source: Journal of Proteome Research