Scientists at the University of Manchester (Great Britain) are about to highlight a peculiar smell that is believed to be associated with people with the disease Parkinson’s disease.
It all started with the statements of a nurse, wife of a Parkinson’s, who said that patients with this disease carry the same musky smell on them. “A smell that I had noticed in my husband long before the diagnosis of the disease was made. At the time I blamed him for not having taken a shower and we always ended up arguing. And later, when he was diagnosed and as I attended Parkinson’s support groups, I understood that all of these patients had the same distinctive scent “ she declared at the BBC.
Find the chemical molecules that make up that smell
Dr Tilo Kunath of the University of Edinburgh then gave him a test: he presented 12 t-shirts of which 6 had been worn by patients with Parkinson’s disease and 6 by non-sick volunteers. The nurse, Joy Milne, was sure to find out which T-shirts were worn by the sick. 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 at the University of Manchester, to try to isolate the molecules that form the scent 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, scientists hope to be able to develop the first reliable test to identify Parkinson’s disease. Because, at the present time, doctors have not identified markers to identify the disease at an early stage.
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