Salivary Oxidative Stress Biomarkers as Predictors of Oral Health Risk Among Coffee-Drinking Smokers and Non-Smokers: Implications for Preventive Dentistry.

PURPOSE: The goal of this study was to look at the link between smoking, drinking coffee, and salivary oxidative stress biomarkers malondialdehyde (MDA) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) as signs of oral health risk among university students in Aceh, Indonesia, and to see if they could be used as non-invasive screening tools in a clinical setting. METHODS AND MATERIALS: There were three groups of students: active smokers, passive smokers, and non-smokers. We used validated questionnaires (Cronbach's alpha = 0.872) to gather behavioural data. We collected unstimulated saliva in a controlled manner and then used enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to analyse it. We also looked at the physicochemical properties of saliva. We used ANOVA, the Kruskal-Wallis test, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis to analyse the data. RESULTS: Smokers had much higher MDA levels (4.1 ± 0.05 nmol/ml) and much lower SOD levels (0.72 ± 0.010 U/ml) than non-smokers (2.5 ± 0.01 nmol/ml; 1.20 ± 0.012 U/ml; P 0.001). Drinking coffee by itself didn't have a direct effect on oxidative stress, but when combined with smoking, it made the oxidative imbalance much worse. ROC analysis showed that the tests were very good at diagnosing (AUC = 0.88 for MDA; 0.84 for SOD). CONCLUSION: Salivary MDA and SOD are reliable, non-invasive markers that can detect early oxidative stress-related risk. It is a good idea to add saliva-based screening and culturally appropriate prevention strategies to campus health services. These results show that salivary biomarkers are useful in clinical settings for preventive dentistry.