When cases and controls were further stratified into four groups, salivary HβD-3 level in the presence of caries and anemia (group I) was the lowest (6.94 ± 3.13, p = 0.001) and was highest 10.80(4.50) in children with caries and without anemia (group II) amongst all groups as presented in Table 3. Here, HBD is linked to anemia (phenotype).