That's breathtaking! Meet the woman who sniffed out her husband's Parkinson's... and now experts have created first ever test based on odour that alerted her
Victoria Allen Science Correspondent For The Daily Mail00:00 BST 07 Sep 2022 , updated 00:59 BST 07 Sep 2022
Scientists have developed a test for Parkinson’s disease thanks to a grandmother’s super sense of smell
Joy Milne, 72, was able to sniff out Parkinson’s in her husband 12 years before he was diagnosed, because the way he smelled changed.
She has been a major asset to scientists, as a ‘super-smeller’, who can diagnose strangers who have the disease simply by sniffing T-shirts they have been wearing.
It was her incredible nose which discovered that the telltale scent of Parkinson’s comes most strongly not from sweaty armpits but from the back of people’s necks and between their shoulder blades.
This revealed that sebum – an oily substance secreted from pores in the skin – contained ten compounds linked to Parkinson’s.
Now, after further research, scientists have identified 500 such compounds including ‘fatty acids’ called triglycerides and diglycerides, and developed the first test for them. Costing less than £20, the test could be trialled in Greater Manchester within two years.
Researchers say Parkinson’s disease can be identified within three minutes after swabbing the back of someone’s neck. There had previously been no definitive test for the disease, with doctors instead basing a diagnosis on someone’s symptoms and medical history.
Mrs Milne, a grandmother of seven from Perth in Scotland, noticed her husband Les smelled ‘musky’ when he was 31.
She first realised she could smell the illness in others when she attended a support group meeting with her husband, a former doctor who died in 2015.
The retired nurse helped to identify sebum as a major source of the Parkinson’s scent, and now scientists have published the results of testing this oily substance in 79 people with Parkinson’s compared with 71 healthy people.
