Abstract
We have applied the recent method of Benedict for the determination of uric acid in blood to the filtrate obtained from saliva by a slight modification of the Folin-Wu tungistic acid precipitation method. Fifty-one samples of saliva from thirty healthy men showed maximum and minimum contents of uric acid of 2.9 and 0.6 mgs. per 100 c.c. of saliva, while fifteen samples from ten women showed similar variations from 2.3 mg. to 0.7 mg. In more than fifty per cent. of the salivas obtained from men, the uric acid content fell within a range of 1.6 to 2.1 mgs., while in the case of the women the values ranged from 1.05 to 1.15 mgs. in more than fifty per cent. of the salivas examined. Twenty-two samples collected at intervals over a period of four months from the same woman showed variations of from 1.5 mg. to 0.7 mg. Samples of saliva and blood were collected simultaneously and analyzed for uric acid.
Salivary uric acid was much lower than the uric acid of the blood (approximately thirty per cent. of the uric acid of the blood in most cases) as shown in the table.
The salivary glands are apparently not readily permeable to the glucose of the blood. In only one of the salivas studied was there obtained sufficient reduction (Folin-Wu method) to make possible an approximate estimation (0.006 per cent. calculated as glucose). Although the blood sugar was increased about fifty per cent. one and one-half hours after enteral administration of 100 grams of glucose, glucose could not be detected in the salivas of two individuals.
Further work on other organic constituents of saliva is in progress.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.