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ABSTRACT
Background: Diabetes mellitus is a group of metabolic diseases characterized by a chronic and persistent hyperglycemia due to insulin deficiency or insulin resistance or both. Oral complications of diabetes mellitus include xerostomia, burning mouth, periodontitis, dental caries, tooth mobility. Methods:This comparative cross-sectional study involved 22 diabetic patients between the ages of 35 to 75 years and 21 age and sex matched control group. Whole unstimulated saliva was collected and saliva flow rate and pH were determined. Data was analyzed using the Statistic Package for Social science (IBM version 21.0) for windows. Results The mean salivary flow rate among diabetic patient was 5.76 ±0.88mls/min while that of the control was 5.00±0.49mls/min. The p value was not statistically significant. The mean pH of saliva among the diabetic patients was 6.86 while that of the control group was 6.86. The p-value was not statistically significant. There was no statistical significance in the p value following comparison of the pH of saliva and duration of diabetes mellitus. Conclusion There was no difference between the salivary flow rate of diabetics and non diabetics. The duration of the diabetes had no impact on the salivary flow in diabetic patients. This study also revealed that there was no difference in the pH of saliva of diabetics and non diabetics, both wellcontrolled and poorly controlled. Keywords Salivary flow rate, salivary pH, diabetes.
