Table 3.

The correlation of the salt taste threshold with age, MMP-9, salivary secretion, and blood pressure.

Correlation of salt taste threshold	Smoking (n = 24)		Nonsmoking (n = 49)		Combined (n = 73)
	r	p	r	p	r	p
(1) Age	−0.083	0.700	0.233	0.108	0.049	0.683
(2) Salivary volume	0.286	0.176	−0.084	0.568	0.039	0.743
(3) Salivary pH	−0.013	0.951	−0.075	0.607	−0.047	0.694
(4) Systolic	0.440	0.032	0.246	0.089	0.260	0.026
(5) Diastolic	0.257	0.226	0.066	0.654	0.104	0.379
(6) Duration of smoking	0.237	0.265	—	—	—	—
(7) Number of cigarette/day	0.039	0.856	—	—	—	—
(8) MMP-9	0.228	0.285	−0.010	0.943	0.094	0.431