Human saliva plays a pivotal role in digesting food and maintaining oral hygiene. The presence of electrolytes, mucus, glycoproteins, enzymes, antibacterial compounds, and gingival crevicular fluid in saliva ensures the optimum condition of oral cavity and general health condition. Saliva collection has been proven non-invasive, convenient, and inexpensive compared to conventional venipuncture procedure. These distinctive advantages provide a promising potential of saliva as a diagnostic fluid. Through comprehensive analysis, an array of salivary proteins and peptides may be beneficial as biomarkers in oral and systemic diseases. In this review, we discuss the utility of human salivary proteomes and tabulate the recent salivary biomarkers found in subjects with acute myocardial infarction as well as respective methods employed. In a clinical setting, since acute myocardial infarction contributes to large cases of mortality worldwide, an early intervention using these biomarkers will provide an effective solution to reduce global heart attack incidence particularly among its high-risk group of type-2 diabetes mellitus patients. The utility of salivary biomarkers will make the prediction of this cardiac event possible due to its reliability hence improve the quality of life of the patients. Current challenges in saliva collection are also addressed to improve the quality of saliva samples and produce robust biomarkers for future use in clinical applications.

An early intervention using biomarkers to predict acute myocardial infarction (AMI) will effectively reduce global heart attack incidence, particularly among high-risk patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). This study attempted to identify potential biomarkers by detecting changes in the levels of plasma proteins in T2DM patients following onset of AMI in comparison with those without AMI. Volunteer T2DM patients without AMI (control; n=10) and T2DM patients with AMI (n=10) were recruited. Plasma samples from these patients were evaluated via two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2DE) to screen for proteins with level changes between the two groups. The abundance of spots on gel images was analyzed using Progenesis SameSpots and subjected to false discovery rate (FDR) analysis. Protein spots with statistically significant changes of at least 1.5 fold were selected for mass spectrometry (MS) analysis. Due to strong cardiac connections, tetranectin and titin were evaluated by enzymelinked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The adjusted P-values and fold changes between the two groups resulted in identification of 34 protein spots with significantly altered abundance. Upon MS analysis, 17 plasma proteins were identified: tetranectin, titin, clusterin, haptoglobin, myosin-13, zinc fnger protein 445, DNA repair protein RAD50, serum albumin, apolipoprotein A-IV, caspase-6, aminoacyl tRNA synthase complex-interacting multifunctional protein 1, serotransferrin, retinol-binding protein 4, transthyretin, alpha-1-antitrypsin, apolipoprotein A-I and serum amyloid A. Comparable patterns of changes in tetranectin and titin between the control and AMI groups were confirmed using ELISA. In summary, tetranectin and titin in plasma appeared to be closely associated with the onset of AMI among T2DM patients and can be used as potential biomarkers for prediction of a cardiac event, though this requires validation in a prospective cohort study.

Background: Unhappiness, stress, and burnout will often lead to low academic performance among dental students. Perseverance and passion for long-term goal, known as grit, could overcome these despondent emotions. Our Study is looking at whether grit should be added as another domain during the interview process. The main objective of this study was to determine the association between grit and happiness among Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) dental students. In addition to that, the prevalence of gritty and happy dental students in UiTM was also determined and compared across the years of study. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study. Validated Short Grit Scale (Grit-S) and Pemberton Happiness Index (PHI) were distributed to all 409 undergraduate dental students in Faculty of Dentistry, UiTM through their class representatives. Scores for both grit and happiness were calculated according to their instruction manual. Data were analyzed using SPSS Version 25 by descriptive analysis, oneway ANOVA, independent t-test, Pearson's correlation, and linear regression.Result: Two hundred sixty-six students returned the answered questionnaires, yielding a response rate of 65%. Prevalence of gritty and happy UiTM dental students was found to be at 79% and 41%, respectively. There was a significant positive fair linear correlation between grit and happiness among dental students (r = 0.225, p < 0.001). A significantly higher happiness score is observed among gritty student (p < 0.001). Conclusion: While this study demonstrated high prevalence of grit, prevalence of happiness among UiTM dental students was low. Higher grit score had a positive impact on happiness score among dental students in UiTM. For this reason, grit may be considered as an additional element in selecting upcoming dental students.

Human saliva is an indispensable fluid that maintains a healthy oral cavity which otherwise can lead to oral diseases (dental caries and periodontitis). In addition, salivary metabolites and microbiome profile provide early detection of systemic diseases such as cancer and obesity. Salivary diagnostic has gained popularity due to its non-invasive sampling technique. Fasting (abstinence from food or drink or both) research for weight loss and improve health is common, but studies using fasting saliva are scarce. Some metabolites in fasting saliva have been reported with interesting results, which can be enhanced by considering different confounding factors. For example, fasting saliva contains higher salivary nitrite, which is related to nitric oxide (NO). NO is a vasodilator supporting the healthy function of endothelial cells and its deficiency is connected to many diseases. The timely supply of NO through exogenous and endogenous means is highlighted and the potential advantage of fasting salivary composition changes in relation to COVID-19 infection is speculated. This review aims to provide a general discussion on the salivary composition, properties, and functions of the whole saliva, including the health benefits of fasting.

90% - 95% of oral malignancies are reported to be contributed by oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Patients with oral cancer also have suffered from a stagnant survival rate of 50% for decades. With the advancement in technologies and medicine discovery, the standard solution for oral cancer is via chemotherapy and surgery. An alternative for the treatment is by incorporating a genotoxic drug, cisplatin. Unfortunately, cisplatin has been reported by many patients to give unpleasant effects such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain. Hence, a more reliable treatment needs to be unleashed. Allicin (diallylthiosulfinate) is well known for its antioxidant, antifungal, anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial purposes. Numerous studies have also reported the effectiveness of allicin as an anticancer agent against multiple cancer cell strains. With treatment of allicin in a dose-dependent manner, inhibition of carcinoma cells proliferation through a programmed cell death called apoptosis was considered favourable. Allicin induces apoptosis by activating cascades of caspases and caspase independent pathways as well as increasing p53 and Bax/Bcl2 expression. Allicin serves many potentials to fight off oral cancer carcinoma cells but there seems to be a limited amount of study in the oral cancer area. Therefore, this review article would like to highlight the reported studies on allicin in various cancer cell lines including oral cancer cells.