Can one smell Parkinson's disease?

ME/CFS Skeptic

ME/CFS Skeptic

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Found this to be an interesting story. A Scottish women named Joy Milne says she can smell Parkinson's.

She is a former nurse and her husband developed the illness. Milne says she noticed the smell of Parkinson's ten years before her husband was diagnosed with the illness. After going to a Parkinson's meeting, she knew what the smell was.

A research group at the University of Manchester has tested her ability to detect patients with Parkinson's, successfully. They are now trying to develop a diagnostic test so the illness can be diagnosed sooner.

Here's a BBC video on Milne from last year:


And a short article by the Guardian about a recent paper on the development of the test (by Tom Fielden) https://www.theguardian.com/society...elps-develop-swab-test-for-parkinsons-disease [EDIT: The publication is Triverdi et al. (2019). Discovery of Volatile Biomarkers of Parkinson’s Disease from Sebum.]

This may sound weird, but I would very much want Joy Milne to smell me...

Not for Parkinson's, but who knows that ME/CFS has its own odor?
 
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The scientists used a technique called mass spectrometry to measure levels of volatile chemicals in sebum on swabs from Parkinson’s patients and healthy volunteers. By testing different groups, they whittled down the number of fragrant compounds from thousands to just four that appear to be most important for the scent.

Writing in the journal ACS Central Science, the researchers describe how Milne confirmed that mixtures of the four compounds had the same musky smell as Parkinson’s patients. Tests found that levels of three substances, eicosane, hippuric acid and octadecanal, were all higher than normal in the sebum of Parkinson’s patients, while levels of a fourth substance, perillic aldehyde, were lower.
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Another study that I'd like to see done on people with ME/CFS/. Presumably not so hard if you have a mass spectrometer to hand.

In her next collaboration with the Manchester group, the aim will be to identify chemicals that produce a signature odour for tuberculosis.
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Perhaps Manchester members could encourage this team to add ME/CFS to their 'to do' list?
 
This one doesn't know, but doubts this one can, having met someone with Parkinson's and not smelt much beyond the beer they were drinking and the rollup they were smoking (it was a while ago, when the disabled were still allowed to smoke in places that sold beer).

I thought they had dogs that smelt diseases these days, pretty sure I've seen that on TV, or maybe that was a dream. But I'm fairly sure dogs have better sniffers than women from Scotland. Cheaper to feed and take up less space as well (important if you're looking to roll out a few hundred thousand of them).
 
Wonko said:
This one doesn't know, but doubts this one can, having met someone with Parkinson's and not smelt much beyond the beer they were drinking and the rollup they were smoking (it was a while ago, when the disabled were still allowed to smoke in places that sold beer).

I thought they had dogs that smelt diseases these days, pretty sure I've seen that on TV, or maybe that was a dream. But I'm fairly sure dogs have better sniffers than women from Scotland. Cheaper to feed and take up less space as well (important if you're looking to roll out a few hundred thousand of them).
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The story from a few years back was that she was able to pick out people with Parkinsons blinded and insisted one person had it who didn't but later developed it
 
They have been using/are using dogs for this (identifying disease) for a long time

https://massivesci.com/articles/dogs-smell-diseases-diagnose-cancer-diabetes/

Dogs are also being trained to smell malaria and other diseases; I saw a documentary on it not that long ago (sorry can't remember where/what it was called).

eta: in Outlander (TV series) the nun/medic at the hospital has a little dog that she uses (not a terribly scientific reference I know but shows its not necessarily a new idea).

eta2: sorry just spotted roller* already mentioned it.
 
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Merged thread

The woman who could smell Parkinson’s
this is a long audio story about that woman who has ultra sensitive sense of smell and her ability to smell Parkinson’s even before it’s diagnosed by the medical community…

…it does make one wonder if there’s other diagnosis out there waiting to be found in a manner like this…


https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/11/podcasts/the-daily/parkinsons-diagnosis-smell.html
 
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