Introduction: Salivary secretion is influenced by a large number of factors, including the circadian rhythm, making the detection of reduced salivary flow (hyposalivation) difficult. This is important since severely reduced salivary secretion has been associated with an increased risk for dental caries and may be a sign of a general disease, e.g. Sjögren's syndrom. It has been suggested that ir...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to evaluate the correlation of severity of oral dryness (OD) with serum and saliva parathyroid hormone (PTH) and calcium levels, and to compare serum and stimulated whole saliva PTH and calcium between menopausal women with/without OD. METHODS A case-control study was carried out in 76 (38 as case and 38 as control) selected menopausal women with/without OD...

PURPOSE We have previously shown that a transcriptome is found in saliva and subpanels of these mRNAs can be used as oral cancer biomarkers. In this study, we measured the presence of microRNAs (miRNA) in saliva and determined their potential as an additional set of oral cancer biomarkers. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN A total of 314 miRNAs were measured using reverse transcriptase-preamplification-qua...

The breakdown of food is a complex and intricate process that is successful in large part due to saliva. Not only does saliva help with the breakdown of food for the nutritional value that is has, but saliva also aids in conveying this nutritional information to the brain through the gustatory system. Both animals and humans use saliva on a daily basis to help transduce taste signals to the bra...

BACKGROUND Lithium carbonate is valuable and effective agent in the treatment and prophylaxis of mood disorders, particularly bipolar disorder (BD). Due to its narrow therapeutic range, frequent serum lithium estimation is necessary. To avoid the discomfort of frequent venipuncture, a non-invasive method for serum lithium concentration is needed. An alternative method of determining lithium lev...