2025 · Science & justice : journal of the Forensic Science Society · paywalled
Forensic biomarker discovery: Utilising metabolomics to elucidate prospective fatigue biomarkers for eventual roadside detection
Hamilton et al.
The finding, in our words
In a pilot study of 12 people, sleep deprivation altered saliva metabolites detectable by NMR spectroscopy, with scyllo-inositol showing promise as a fatigue biomarker for potential roadside testing. However, the three-minute cognitive test did not align with self-reported fatigue, and larger studies are needed before this could support decentralised fatigue screening.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
This narrative review finds that saliva is best suited to repeated neuroendocrine and metabolic measurements during exercise, sweat is most mature for electrolyte and sweat-rate monitoring with wearable compatibility, and exhaled breath offers access to volatile metabolism but remains instrumentally demanding. Each matrix requires matching to a defined clinical or exercise question with matrix-specific validation before translational use.
Salivary tryptophan is significantly raised in HER2‑negative breast cancer and falls after tumour removal, correlating with aggressive disease features. This shows saliva can provide a non‑invasive metabolic marker for screening and monitoring breast cancer in decentralised settings.
The Guangzhou Nutrition and Health Study integrates 14-day real-time continuous glucose monitoring with multi-omics data, including serum and faecal metabolomes, proteomes, and gut microbiome sequencing, to explore biomarkers and mechanisms of metabolic disease.
A scoping review of 52 studies found most were high-quality RCTs using CGM, metabolomics and microbiome analysis in endurance athletes, yet evidence linking these biomarkers to performance, recovery or long-term health remains insufficient. This gap between biomarker discovery and clinical validation must be closed before these decentralised tools can guide precision nutrition.
Saliva is a validated diagnostic matrix for steroids, hormones, therapeutic drugs and drugs of abuse that can be collected non-invasively by patients at home. The review stresses that rigorous collection, handling and storage protocols are critical to prevent false results in decentralised settings.
Boroumand et al., Journal of separation science · source ↗