Saliva

This book presents a thorough knowledge of the functions and properties of saliva, its role in health and disease, and the diagnostic technologies available for the identification of saliva biomarkers.

Japanese researchers are focusing on saliva as a valuable tool for making diagnoses. A cutting-edge test developed in Japan can detect cancer at a very early stage by analyzing substances in saliva unique to cancerous cells. It requires just a few drops of saliva so it's easy on patients, and doctors are already using it to save lives. Another test offers a quick way to measure people's stress. And we'll share simple massage techniques to encourage saliva secretion for better oral health.

Saliva as a unique sample for health assessment is gaining attention among researchers of different fields in the last 20 years; being reflected in an impressive increase in the number of papers published studying saliva from different biological aspects in human and veterinary species. Once deemed merely a digestive juice is now considered a biological fluid capable of communicating information about physiopathological processes occurring in organisms, since saliva has been shown to contain molecular and bacterial compounds that can change in response to local and systemic pathologies.

Get to grips with the glorious world of goop and gunk, from pus, snot, and mucus to mud, snail slime, and sticky plants, in this compendium of gunk.