Heavy work schedules come with a price. Today, the work pace is often tight and strenuous, leaving us no time to implement a healthy lifestyle. Even the weekends get occupied with chores and get togethers; hence giving rise to lifestyle diseases. Unbalanced diet, lack of sleep, and mental stress are the triggers to these health issues.
Lifestyle diseases are non-communicable for e.g., diabetes, strokes, cancer, obesity, and hypertension. According to a recent study by The Lancet, over 61% of deaths in India are caused due to lifestyle diseases. These numbers are expected to rise in the approaching years, especially in the metro cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, etc. Despite the regular check-ups and screening, there are a few diseases that remain undetected until a late phase where unwholesome symptoms become evident. If the symptoms pertaining to these diseases are diagnosed and treated at an early stage, there will be a lowered incidence of deaths in India.
To acknowledge the issue, diagnostic centres have come up with modern technologies that test lifestyle diseases through saliva samples. People now, can collect their samples at home, within their comfort zone, and send them to lab for processing. One doesn’t need to test repeatedly and individually for different concerns/symptoms. An individual sample can easily test for multiple diseases.
The saliva testing has been seen to not only deliver accurate results but also an emergent cost-effective method compared to the conventional blood tests. This convenient and timely testing helps in addressing the diseases in time and mitigates the possibility of they turning into severe ailments.
Although people often avoid saliva testing as it is perceived inconvenient and unhygienic, and alarming as the samples could lead to communicable infections, the laboratories are taking necessary measures to avoid such doubts through a well-conceived clinical setting to collect and process the samples. Laboratories are observing a watertight procedure from collection, transportation, to handing it over to the labs. They are ensuring ‘good samples’ by aligning healthcare personnel with collection guidelines such as making available appropriate containers for samples, ensuring smooth supplies of containers and equipment, ease of transportation, and examination of all samples at their arrival at the laboratory.
Laboratories also adhere to proper guidelines while transporting a sample i.e. maintenance of predetermined distance between the collection and the lab; in case this is overshot, they ensure proper arrangements to maintain the integrity of the sample; maintain temperature, preservation procedures; special transport containers to avoid spills; and focus on time window. The ‘saliva testing’ has emerged as a safe and satisfactory method of testing world over. Many countries have adopted this testing method for people’s safety and the improvement of their lifestyles.