1Junior Teaching Assistant, Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Kabul University of Medical Sciences, Kabul, Afghanistan
2Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of allied Health Sciences, Kabul University of Medical Sciences, Kabul, Afghanistan
Saliva is a unique biological fluid produced by different salivary glands. Human saliva is usually supersaturated with calcium that is one of the compositions of dental enamel. Viscosity is a rheological property of complex salivary fluid, which is related to its glycoprotein content.
This is a cross sectional study conducted on 250 volunteers. Calcium was calculated using Arsenazo III reagent in semi auto-analyzer Microlab 300. and Viscosity was measured by Ostwald’s pipette. All data were analyzed in SPSS version 26. Mann Whitney U test was used for comparison of variables.
In this study among 250 volunteers there were165 (66%) female and 85 (34%) male and 95 (57.5%) women and 70 (42.5%) men were between 18-30 years old while 28 (32.9%) women and 57 (67.1%) men were between 31-65 years old. Calcium significantly increased after age 30 years in female than males, but the viscosity has not changed significantly in both age category. Women who are under 30 years old have a higher level of viscosity in the 18-30 years old, than that of men, but there is no difference in calcium. There were no significant change between calcium and viscosity among females and males and two age groups.
It can be concluded that female’s salivary calcium is significantly increased than men and viscosity was higher in women after the age 30 years that is suggestive of more caries risk in females than males.
Whole saliva, Saliva, Unstimulated saliva, Salivary calcium, Salivary viscosity
