Parkinson's can be detected by smell
 

According to the BBC a women can smell Parkinson's.

Based purely on smelling an article of clothing, with 6 PwP and 6 controls she was right 11 out of 12 times. Her one mistake was to identify one of the controls as having PD - but 8 months later he was diagnosed with the disease.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-34583642

John

Thankyou John, fascinating stuff, I guess its similar to canine cancer detection though with this it will be possible to explore and evaluate in a precise way under scientific protocols.
May not be relevant but Iv been told on occasion over the years that I have a 'musky' scent, always by females . They assure me it is not unpleasant thank goodness ! My daughter just said she sometimes notices it .
As if we don't have enough to deal with ! Wonder if my son will let me borrow his aftershave.
One final thought I wonder if it would work on atypical Parkinson's,known cause variants such as c.monoxide induced or animal models used in trials.

Nigel

If it can be repeated, I think this is an important finding. Depending on the direction of causality (Parkinson's causes something to happen that produces the distinctive smell, or something with this smell happens that causes PD):
- it provides a useful diagnostic tool for PD (though I can't answer Nigel's question on whether it will be specific enough to differentiate between the sub-types of Parkinsonism);
- it gives a lead as to the aetiology of PD.

My wife has since before I was diagnosed with PD described me as having a fungal smell. (I am unable to confirm this because, as happens to many PwP, I lost much of my sense of smell some years before being diagnosed. It is, perhaps, ironic, that the thing that would have detected the disease is taken away from us by the disease.)

To add to the case, it is interesting that this result is published so recently after the paper implicating fungi in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's.

The experiment used to determine the Scottish lady's abilities would be very easy to duplicate. One day is all that is needed.

John

For decades I've had both a strong odor and, at times, also unusually excessive sweating. Always wondered about possible PD connection. I've posted about it on a couple of PD forums (maybe here?) and on 23andMe and asked for responses, but got no interest.

Very interesting.
I wonder if dogs could be trained to recognize that small and be used in early diagnoses of Parkinson. After all their nose is much more sensitive then ours.

This result seems so important to me that we need to confirm it as soon as possible.

Would anyone like to join me in some citizen science?

At its simplest it would require people, PwPs and controls, to rub themselves with a square of kitchen paper towel and send it, together with a Yes or a No as to whether they have been diagnosed with PD, anonymously to me. I will send the samples to a team of sniffers and post the raw data, leaving it open to anyone to statistically analyse.

I'd be grateful for your views.

John

I agree re the potential of this, count me in John. It would be important to make sure there was a lack of background scents such as anti-perspirants.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, 8th March, at 2100 on BBC2 (UK) there is a programme called "Incredible Medicine: Dr Weston's Casebook" (Series 1, Episode 3) a segment of which is on "a woman who can smell Parkinson's disease."

John

Dr. Laurie Mischley in Seattle trained her dog to identify people with PD. At a recent conference her dog did wonderfully well. I don't know if she has published anything about it.

I was diagnosed by her dog yesterday :)