Joy Milne, a Scottish woman, has an extremely rare ability: she can detect Parkinson’s disease by scent.
She had been with her husband, Les, since she was 16, so she knew his natural smell well.
Then she noticed it change.
Scientists have explained why body odour shifts with age, pointing to the chemical 2-nonenal.
But Joy realised Les’s smell change was linked to health, not just ageing.
She noticed the new scent around 1982, before Les’s 32nd birthday.
She told The Guardian: “In 1982, before Les’s 32nd birthday, I noticed a musky, dank odour on him – he knew about my heightened sense of smell. I thought it might be the unprocessed air of the operating theatres he worked in and told him to shower more. That caused arguments.”
Twelve years later, Les received a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease.
Joy and Les later realised her scent detection applied to others as well.
While at a Parkinson’s support group, she encountered the same overwhelming smell on someone else.
She then worked with scientists to see whether her ability could help detect Parkinson’s early.
“Les and I should have been enjoying retirement, but Parkinson’s had stolen our lives,” Joy said.
She continued: “We became determined that others wouldn’t suffer the same way. When Les died in June 2015, he made me promise I’d carry on. I spent time in labs, smelling sufferers’ T-shirts and swabs for sebum – the skin oil we all produce, which changes with the onset of Parkinson’s.
“I could detect whether the person had the disease with 95% accuracy. I was surprised.”
Joy has collaborated with the University of Manchester and appears on a paper in ACS Central Science.
Research linked higher levels of certain skin compounds to Parkinson’s, notably hippuric acid, eicosane, and octadecanal, BBC News reported.