Taking Concussions Head-On: Part II

Recognizing the Breadth of the Problem and the Search for Answers Previously, I discussed the serious issue of concussions in sports - at all levels - and some of the efforts being pursued to combat it. Much is being done, but one simple and effective path bears further exploration. There may be reason to believe that the secret to diagnosing a concussion could reside in our saliva, offering for the first time an avenue to quickly and accurately provide a definitive diagnosis. Developing a Spit Test Long regarded as the sole domain of the dentist, the medical community in recent years has begun to recognize the mouth as a vital gateway to identifying and evaluating overall body wellness. One initiative helping to change this perception is the emergence of salivary diagnostics. Saliva, it turns out, contains virtually all of the same medical diagnostic information as blood, including DNA, proteins, hormones, metabolites, and inflammatory and immune molecules. In the future, salivary tests may replace certain blood tests as a simple, non-invasive manner of making a diagnosis. Already, saliva is being studied as a tool to diagnose pre-diabetes/metabolic syndrome, oral cancer, active tuberculosis, Lyme disease, and progressive gum disease (periodontitis) to name just a few. The Forsyth Center for Salivary Diagnostics in Cambridge MA, is leading efforts to develop a new generation of point-of-care saliva-based tests. In the case of a concussion, our spit may able be able to ...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news