Diagnosing and Monitoring Diabetes using a Spit Test

A new painless method was discovered in detecting diabetes, using saliva, holds promise, suggests research presented Friday at the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) annual meeting in Houston.

If the research pans out — would forego needle-pricking patients, especially unappealing to the growing number of children with the condition. Instead, patients could simply spit into a cup. It also would cost a lot less as well.

Through the course of his team's research, Nagalla estimates they identified 487 unique proteins, approximately a third of which had not been previously found in human saliva. Of those, 65 proteins indicated a difference between patients with normal blood glucose levels and those with diabetes.

That doesn't rule out using traditional methods of testing diabetes, as using traditional monitors result in more accurate readings.

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