‘Woman who can smell Parkinson’s’ helps scientists develop test

A test to determine if people have Parkinson's disease can be developed using a woman's sense of smell.

The test was years in the making after academics realized that Joy could smell it. A woman from Perth, Scotland, has a condition that makes her smell better.

She noticed that her late husband, Les, had a different smell when he was 33 years old, 12 years before he was diagnosed with the disease, which leads to parts of the brain becoming damaged over many years.

The woman who can smell Parkinson's is called "the woman who can smell Parkinson's"

Scientists decided to research what she could smell and see if it could be used to identify people with neurological conditions.

The University of Manchester has made a breakthrough by developing a test that can identify people with Parkinson's disease using a simple cotton bud.

If someone has the disease, researchers can look at the sample to see if there are any links to it.

Scientists are excited about the possibility of the National Health Service being able to use a simple test to detect the disease.

Parkinson's can be diagnosed based on a patient's symptoms and medical history.

It could be rolled out to achieve quicker diagnosis if the skin swab is successful.

It wasn't acceptable that people with Parkinson's had high degrees of neurological damage at the time of diagnosis, and it has to be detected far earlier.

Change of diet and exercise can be very beneficial.

She said her husband, a former doctor, was determined to find the right researcher to examine the link between odor and Parkinson's and they sought out Dr Tilo Kunath at the University of Edinburgh in 2012

Prof Perdita Barran and Kunath studied Milne's smell.

The scent may be caused by a change in skin oil caused by the disease, according to the scientists.

They asked Milne to smell shirts worn by people with and without Parkinson's. She correctly identified the T-shirts worn by Parkinson's patients but also said that one from the group of people without Parkinson's smelled like the disease after eight months.

Researchers hoped the finding could lead to a test being developed to detect Parkinson's, working under the assumption that if they were able to identify a unique chemical signature in the skin linked to the disease, they might eventually be able to diagnose it from simple skin samples.

Barran and his team at the University of Manchester discovered a link between the disease found in skin samples and the molecule that causes it. This information has been used to develop a test.

Scientists are assessing whether the tests can be used in a hospital setting. If the test is successful, it could be used in the National Health Service.

The Journal of the American Chemical Society has published the findings that show how mass spectrometry can be used to identify a disease. People with Parkinson's are the only ones who have some molecule present.

A group of people with Parkinson's were compared with a group of people without the disease.

There is no cure for Parkinson's, but a confirmatory diagnostic would allow them to get the right treatment and the drugs that will help to alleviate their symptoms.

Non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as movement and nutrition classes, can help. It will allow them to have a confirmed diagnosis of what is wrong with them.

We are looking at hospital laboratories to see if they can do what we did in a research lab. We want to see if we can make a confirmatory diagnostic that can be used along with the referral process.

It will take up to two years for 18,000 people in Greater Manchester to clear a neurological consult list if they don't join it. The majority are suspect Parkinson's.

The test would allow them to be referred to the right specialist if they did or didn't have Parkinson's. We want to be able to refer people in a timely manner to the right specialism.

She is working with scientists around the world to find out if she can smell other diseases.

She can't go into the chemical aisle in the supermarket because of people's perfumes.

I have done research on Tuberculosis and cancer in the US as well as in Africa, but it is a curse. It's a curse and a benefit.

She said she can sometimes smell people who have Parkinson's, but she can't tell them.

Which GP would allow a man or woman to say that they have Parkinson's? It's possible in the future but not now.