Woman who can 'smell out Parkinson's disease' inspires new study

When researchers talk about smell and Parkinson's disease, they are often talking about the fact that loss of a sense of smell can be one of the earliest features of the disease. Indeed, at the PREDICT-PD project we are smell loss as one of a number of early clues that might help predict the onset of Parkinson's disease.

However, lately there has been talk of the possibility of 'sniffing out' Parkinson's disease, inspired by a woman who appears to be able to detect the condition, simply through body odour.

Joy Milne, whose husband, Les, recently died after living with Parkinson's for 20 years, recalls how she noticed a very subtle change in her husband's aroma starting about 6 years before he first developed the condition.

Mrs Milne, 65, from Perth, Scotland, was attending a talk by Dr Tilo Kunath, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh, where she mentioned this to Dr Kunath, who became interested in testing her ability to detect the disease through smell alone.

Dr Kunath set up a pilot study where he had Mrs Milne smell the t-shirts of 6 people without Parkinson's disease and 6 people with the disease. Mrs Milne correctly classified 11 out of the 12 participants, though the researchers note that she was adamant the final subject who she identified "incorrectly" did have Parkinson's. This participant was diagnosed with the disease 8 months later. Amazingly, not only could Joy identify the disease, but she could also predict it before it had manifested clinically.

Parkinson's UK are now funding researchers at Manchester, Edinburgh and London to study around 200 people with and without Parkinson's.

The experts will analyse skin swabs to identify small molecules that are found in people with Parkinson's, with the hope of creating a diagnostic test.

The team will also use "human detectors" - people with exceptional smelling abilities - to back up the study.

The idea of using smell (or the analysis of 'volatile organic compunds') to identify diseases, including Parkinson's, is not new. In Feburary this year, Professor Hossam Haick and his team at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology published results which showed their technique to be 85% accurate at detecting Parkinson's disease using participants' breath.

I think this is a great example of how patient interest in Parkinson's disease research can help inspire a new scientific ventures. The Parkinson's disease research community is lucky to have a patient population who are particularly active in and engaged with research, and this is a relationship we should cherish!