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The Smell Of Sickness

Joy Milne was described as being "somewhere between a human and a dog" in terms of her sense of smell, in the BBC documentary.
If a search-dog has an ability that's notionally 10,000 times better than a conventional human, and Joy is able to detect the 10 specific molecules that indicate Parkinson's, that may place her in the 1,000-2,000 better-than-average range (or even higher) She also has the training of having been a fully-qualified nurse, and is an excellent communicator.

No doubt once we have improved the electronic nose, it could become an important medical tool https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_nose
 
Short Version:
Joe Milne from Scotland can smell Parkinson's Disease. Given twelve shirts, six from Parkinson's patients and six from the control group, she correctly distinguished eleven of the twelve as either having or not having the disease. Eight months later the one individual that she 'incorrectly' assigned to the Parkinson's group was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

Long Version:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-34583642

Update with slightly more technical detail:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-42252411

Beyond the scope of this thread, but an individuals gait/posture can also function as a diagnostic tool:

 
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I seem to remember reading some years ago about a company who were developing a machine for diagnostically 'sniffing out' illness in patients. The company were based in my home town and their head office was on a business park where I used to walk my dogs.
 
A new Parkinson’s test has been developed after scientists were able to harness the power of a woman who can sniff out the disease.

The test has been years in the making after researchers at Manchester University realised that Joy Milne of Perth, Scotland, could smell the condition.

The academics first began to believe Parkinson's might have a discernible odour when Mrs Milne claimed she detected a change in the odour of her husband, Les, six years before he was diagnosed with the condition.

Mrs Milne, 72, said that her husband’s smell changed subtly to a "musky" aroma years before any difficulty with movement started to emerge. Mr Milne died in 2015 aged 65.

When researchers conducted tests with Mrs Milne, they found she was able to identify people living with Parkinson's from people without the condition just by smelling the t-shirts they had worn.

Now, the academics at the University of Manchester have made a breakthrough by developing a test which can identify people with the condition by using a simple cotton bud run along the back of the neck.

Researchers can examine the sample to identify molecules linked to the condition to help diagnose whether someone has the disease.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/09/07/new-test-parkinsons-developed-woman-sniffed-disease/

maximus otter
 
A new Parkinson’s test has been developed after scientists were able to harness the power of a woman who can sniff out the disease.

The test has been years in the making after researchers at Manchester University realised that Joy Milne of Perth, Scotland, could smell the condition.

The academics first began to believe Parkinson's might have a discernible odour when Mrs Milne claimed she detected a change in the odour of her husband, Les, six years before he was diagnosed with the condition.

Mrs Milne, 72, said that her husband’s smell changed subtly to a "musky" aroma years before any difficulty with movement started to emerge. Mr Milne died in 2015 aged 65.

When researchers conducted tests with Mrs Milne, they found she was able to identify people living with Parkinson's from people without the condition just by smelling the t-shirts they had worn.

Now, the academics at the University of Manchester have made a breakthrough by developing a test which can identify people with the condition by using a simple cotton bud run along the back of the neck.

Researchers can examine the sample to identify molecules linked to the condition to help diagnose whether someone has the disease.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/09/07/new-test-parkinsons-developed-woman-sniffed-disease/

maximus otter
My soon to be daughter in law is involved on the periphery of this.
 
A new Parkinson’s test has been developed after scientists were able to harness the power of a woman who can sniff out the disease.

The test has been years in the making after researchers at Manchester University realised that Joy Milne of Perth, Scotland, could smell the condition.

The academics first began to believe Parkinson's might have a discernible odour when Mrs Milne claimed she detected a change in the odour of her husband, Les, six years before he was diagnosed with the condition.

Mrs Milne, 72, said that her husband’s smell changed subtly to a "musky" aroma years before any difficulty with movement started to emerge. Mr Milne died in 2015 aged 65.

When researchers conducted tests with Mrs Milne, they found she was able to identify people living with Parkinson's from people without the condition just by smelling the t-shirts they had worn.

Now, the academics at the University of Manchester have made a breakthrough by developing a test which can identify people with the condition by using a simple cotton bud run along the back of the neck.

Researchers can examine the sample to identify molecules linked to the condition to help diagnose whether someone has the disease.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/09/07/new-test-parkinsons-developed-woman-sniffed-disease/

maximus otter
I was at a conference a wee while ago with Professor Barran who gave a talk about this. It is a brilliant piece of work.:clap:
 

How you smell sheds light on how healthy you are


Hundreds of chemicals stream from our bodies into the air every second. These chemicals release into the air easily as they have high vapor pressures, meaning they boil and turn into gases at room temperature. They give clues about who we are, and how healthy we are.

Since ancient Greek times, we’ve known that we smell differently when we are unwell. While we rely on blood analysis today, ancient Greek physicians used smell to diagnose maladies. If they took a whiff of your breath and described it as fetor hepaticus (meaning bad liver), it meant you could be headed for liver failure.

If a person’s whiff was sweet or fruity, physicians thought this meant that sugars in the digestive system were not being broken down, and that person probably had diabetes. Science has since shown the ancient Greeks were right.

In 1971, Nobel Laureate chemist Linus Pauling counted 250 different gaseous chemicals in breath. These gaseous chemicals are called volatile organic compounds or VOCs.

Since Pauling’s discovery, other scientists have discovered hundreds more VOCs in our breath. We have learned that many of these VOCs have distinctive odors, but some have no odor that our noses can perceive.

Scientists believe that whether a VOC has an odor that our noses can detect or not, they can reveal information about how healthy someone is.

Breath is not the only source of VOCs in the body. They are also emitted from skin, urine and feces.

VOCs from skin are the result of millions of skin glands removing metabolic waste from the body, as well as waste generated by bacteria and other microbes that live on our skin. Sweating produces extra nutrients for these bacteria to metabolize which can result in particularly odorous VOCs.

Researchers believe that one day some diseases will be diagnosed simply by breathing into a device.

https://studyfinds.org/how-you-smell-sheds-light-on-how-healthy-you-are/

maximus otter
 
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when i was little, i went to a children's doctor who scared the hell out of me. he seemed ancient, and wore an old black suit, and his office was in the top of an old building and was only lit by a few table lamps. lots of books, dark wood, and stuffed leather chairs. he was locally famous and good. he always blew his nose between every patient because he claimed he could smell their illness. dr. mackiterick. he burned the warts off my butt. thanks, doc. :)
Okay - not directly related to this topic (which I just started reading) but I'm reminded of a doctor my folks used to take me to, a Dr. Istok, who lived in a very large house in an old part of town with a lot of tree growth. I'm not sure why, but the neighborhood reminded me of the type of places in Twilight Zone or Outer Limits episodes where things were a bit out of kilter with the rest of the world. As above, lots of books, dark wood, and stuffed leather chairs. He was a distinguished looking East European man, and the last in the area who made house calls. You didn't need an appointment; you just pulled into his big circular driveway and waited your turn in his tile-floor parlor. Back when such things were allowed, he avoided sending you to the hospital for X-rays, since he had his own fluoroscope. Even the wart thing reminds me of him: when what I thought was a large mole, which had been on the top of my head as long as I could remember, started to itch and bleed he said "looks like a wart" and immediately applied some strange fluid that made it disappear in a few days.

Anyway, more on-topic, could the ability to sense some illnesses by smell - consciously or not - be a survival instinct? I have several times been nearly driven to physical sickness by the smell of someone else's vomit. This makes sense, as it keeps someone away from a possible infection or poison, and can drive the same out of you before it takes hold.
 
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