Did you know your saliva might have potential oral health benefits? One emerging area is salivaomics, which is the overall study of the biological molecules present in saliva, using various omics technologies. This is a diagnostic tool, and was round because many researchers were discovering so many new components.
It’s a promising area to monitor various diseases, and even as a cancer screening too.
We all have saliva, and it’s a bodily fluid with so many biometrics too, with many researchers using these biomarkers to better understand various systemic diseases.
Here, we’ll go over how saliva is the future of the world of dental diagnostics, and also treatment of various systemic problems.
Saliva and Diagnostics
Saliva is used for diagnosis because of the different makers that are inside. In your saliva there are RNAs, genes, metabolites, and proteins. When looked at through different technologies, these biomarkers can tell you so much about this. Yes, you can look at bulk samples of saliva, and also look to figure out different issues in the oral cavity that are adding to the biological noise within saliva samples.
Think about it. you get a saliva sample, and you notice there’s an increased amount of different proteins. This could lead to various possibilities on immune issues that are going on, and also help with better understanding these diseases, both autoimmune and bacterial in the mouth.
Right now, the field is growing, and the studies from this can provide valuable information.
Saliva for treating other Systemic Diseases
Cancers, diabetes, and other systemic conditions are hard to properly monitor. When doing diagnostic tests, sometimes they’re not incredibly accurate.
But your saliva contains your genetics, and in turn, it can give you everything that you need to know about what’s really going on. getting a feel for the impact your saliva has on your bodily systems is important.
Some people find out they have diabetes through these screenings, and the information netted from this is invaluable to say the least.
It may be used in the future to find out more diseases, but if you think about it this way, with salivaomics, you’ll be able to get a feel for the current situation, and in turn, also look at the body. Your saliva is attached to the rest of your body, so reading this can be a tell-all to better understand the current health concerns.
The future of This Technology
Right now, this is a growing field. There’s not a ton of different subpopulations in the biomarkers yet that can be identified. This creates some issues, and limits just how much you can do with this.
Bear in mind that, like many emerging technologies, it’s not perfect, and it will in turn be a problem if you take it only at face value. When paired with other tests, it provides more accuracy.
There are also other elements that may impact the samples. Bacteria, especially gum disease, can impact the noise in these samples, which in turn, affects the overall accuracy of said samples.
Again, there’s a lot of different things to bear in mind when working with this technology. It is a good place to start, but keep in mind there is still much we should learn.
While we still have a lot to learn, the saliva we produce is a valuable tool in order to create preventative, personalized healthcare that will really step up the overall impact that our health and wellness has, and allows us to as well create better dental plans that will bring personalized, real touches to our mouths.
