Table 1.

Age, oral conditions, salivary flow rate, and concentration and secretion rate of transferrin in younger and older female subjects

		Younger (n = 30)	Older (n = 20)	P value
Age (years)		25.9 ± 2.1	65.1 ± 9.0	< 0.001**
Tooth number		28.0 ± 2.0	24.9 ± 6.0	0.003**
Total gingival index		17.7 ± 16.0	23.2 ± 10.6	< 0.001**
Flow rate (mL/min)	UWS	0.46 ± 0.27	0.20 ± 0.16	0.078
	SWS	1.54 ± 0.48	0.83 ± 0.43	0.556
Concentration of transferrin (mg/dL)	UWS	1.16 ± 0.96	0.65 ± 0.82	0.357
	SWS	0.49 ± 0.38	0.29 ± 0.30	0.227
Secretion rate of transferrin (μg/min)	UWS	4.18 ± 2.87	0.90 ± 0.84	< 0.001**
	SWS	6.62 ± 4.44	1.62 ± 0.90	< 0.001**

UWS, unstimulated whole saliva; SWS, stimulated whole saliva

Total gingival index reflects the degree of overall gingival inflammation in the oral cavity

Secretion rates of transferrin were calculated by multiplying the flow rates of saliva and their corresponding concentrations of transferrin

The results in the table are from our two previous studies. The data from younger females were adapted from Lee et al. [10] and those from older females were adapted from Suh et al. [14]

^**P < 0.01 by the Student’s t-test