Scientists from the University of Manchester (Great Britain) are about to highlight a particular smell that would be associated with people with Parkinson’s disease.
It all started with the statements of a nurse, wife of a Parkinson’s patient, who said that patients with this disease carry the same musky smell. “A smell that I had spotted in my husband long before the diagnosis of the disease was made. At the time I blamed him for not having taken his shower and we always ended up arguing. And later, when he was diagnosed and I went to support groups for Parkinson’s, I realized that all of these patients had the same distinctive smell” she said at the BBC.
Find the chemical molecules that make up this smell
Dr. Tilo Kunath from the University of Edinburgh then gave him a test: he presented him with 12 T-shirts, 6 of which had been worn by patients with Parkinson’s disease and 6 by non-sick volunteers. The nurse, Joy Milne, found without being mistaken which were the T-shirts worn by the patients. But she also smelled the scent on a T-shirt worn by a volunteer. Three months later, tests confirmed that this person was indeed affected by the disease.
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Dr. Kunath then called on Prof. Perdita Barran, an expert in chemical analysis from the University of Manchester, to try to isolate the molecules that form the odor that Joy is able to smell. The first results have identified 10 distinct molecules for people with Parkinson’s. At the end of the work, the scientists hope to be able to develop the first reliable test to identify Parkinson’s disease. Because, at the moment, doctors have not identified markers to identify the disease at an early stage.
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