Scientists drew on 72-year-old Scot’s rare condition to help identify people with neurological condition
Scientists have harnessed the power of a woman’s hyper-sensitive sense of smell to develop a test to determine whether people have Parkinson’s disease.
The test has been years in the making after academics realised that Joy Milne could smell the condition. The 72-year-old from Perth, Scotland, has a rare condition that gives her a heightened sense of smell.
She noticed that her late husband, Les, developed a different odour when he was 33 – 12 years before he was diagnosed with the disease, which leads to parts of the brain become progressively damaged over many years.
Milne, nicknamed “the woman who can smell Parkinson’s”, described a musky aroma, different from his normal scent.
Scientists have harnessed the power of a woman’s hyper-sensitive sense of smell to develop a test to determine whether people have Parkinson’s disease.
The test has been years in the making after academics realised that Joy Milne could smell the condition. The 72-year-old from Perth, Scotland, has a rare condition that gives her a heightened sense of smell.
She noticed that her late husband, Les, developed a different odour when he was 33 – 12 years before he was diagnosed with the disease, which leads to parts of the brain become progressively damaged over many years.
Milne, nicknamed “the woman who can smell Parkinson’s”, described a musky aroma, different from his normal scent.
Her observation piqued the interest of scientists who decided to research what she could smell, and whether this could be harnessed to help identify people with the neurological condition.
Years later, academics at the University of Manchester have made a breakthrough by developing a test that can identify people with Parkinson’s disease using a simple cotton bud run along the back of the neck.
Researchers can examine the sample to identify molecules linked to the disease to help diagnose if someone has it.
Though still in the early phases of research, scientists are excited about the prospect of the NHS being able to deploy a simple test for the disease.
There is no definitive test for Parkinson’s and diagnosis is based on a patient’s symptoms and medical history.
If the skin swab is successful outside laboratory conditions it could be rolled out to achieve faster diagnosis.
Milne said it was not acceptable that people with Parkinson’s had such high degrees of neurological damage at the time of diagnosis, adding: “I think it has to be detected far earlier – the same as cancer and diabetes, earlier diagnosis means far more efficient treatment and a better lifestyle for people.
“It has been found that exercise and change of diet can make a phenomenal difference.”
She said her husband, a former doctor, was determined to find the right researcher to examine the link between odour and Parkinson’s and they sought out Dr Tilo Kunath at the University of Edinburgh in 2012.
Kunath paired up with Prof Perdita Barran to examine Milne’s sense of smell.
The scientists believed that the scent may be caused by a chemical change in skin oil, known as sebum, that is triggered by the disease.
In their preliminary work they asked Milne to smell T-shirts worn by people who had Parkinson’s and those who did not. She correctly identified the T-shirts worn by Parkinson’s patients but also said that one from the group of people without Parkinson’s smelled like the disease – eight months later that individual was diagnosed with the disease.
Researchers hoped the finding could lead to a test being developed to detect Parkinson’s, working under the assumption that if they were able to identify a unique chemical signature in the skin linked to the disease, they may eventually be able to diagnose it from simple skin swabs.
