In addition to keeping your mouth healthy, saliva may contain indicators of health concerns as well. Since it shares many properties with blood, the use of saliva to detect and diagnose oral diseases and other diseases that could affect your general health is being studied. Researchers have reported promising results in the use of saliva for the diagnosis of breast cancer, oral cancers, gum disease and viral hepatitis. Saliva is already used for rapid HIV testing.
The U.S. National Institutes of Health has targeted salivary diagnostics as an important area of development and is researching its many potential uses.