Can Parkinson's disease be detected? A Scottish woman's ability offers hope for early detection.

Joy Milne from Scotland was able to "smell" Parkinson's disease in her husband before symptoms became apparent. This offers researchers the opportunity to investigate whether the odor emitted by the human body can help diagnose the disease early on. Milne had always had a very sensitive sense of smell. She had detected a change in her late husband's scent several years before her symptoms began. One day, she noticed that her beloved smelled different than usual. She described the odor as heavy and musky. She wasn't aware at the time that this was a precursor to Parkinson's disease. Smell as a diagnostic tool Milne only made the connection when she encountered Parkinson's patients at a meeting of the charity Parkinson's UK. She detected the same odor in them as her husband. She rushed to share this news with a team of scientists who decided to analyze whether the sense of smell could be used to diagnose the disease. A Scottish woman was able to identify Parkinson's patients by the smell of their T-shirts. Tests were conducted at the University of Edinburgh, where six healthy and six sick people wore the T-shirts for a single day. The woman made only one mistake, when trying to determine who was healthy and who wasn't. She insisted with one person that their smell was disturbing. Several months later, it turned out that this person had also developed the disease. Is the secret of Parkinson's disease in the smell of skin? The Milne phenomenon has astonished scientists. A group of researchers from London, Manchester, and Edinburgh is determining whether the skin of Parkinson's patients emits a distinct odor. The answer could lead to the development of a diagnostic test that, using a simple skin swab, would reveal whether someone has the disease. If scientists can prove that the disease is accompanied by a unique odor, they could influence treatment. Perhaps it would even be easier to identify drugs that slow or even halt the progression of Parkinson's disease.