Meet Scottish woman who can smell Parkinson’s disease

Photo this: A package with a blouse appears on your doorstep-but it’s not from your last entertainment of online shopping. On the contrary, he is from a stranger who hopes to find out if they have Parkinson’s disease.

This is a daily reality for Joy Milne, a Scottish woman who claims she can smell the aroma of the condition long before the symptoms appear.

The former 75-year-old nurse told the Telegraph that she no longer opens the packages herself, but for more than a decade, she has used her extraordinary nose to help scientists. Now, they are on the verge of a medical progress that can make Parkinson’s early diagnosis a reality.

About 1 million Americans are living with Parkinson’s disease, and nearly 90,000 new cases are diagnosed each year – making it the second most common neurodegeneous disorder after Alzheimer’s, according to the Parkinson Foundation.

The weak condition slowly destroys the brain, often damaging the nerve cells for years, or even decades, before the surface of the symptoms. As it progresses, patients encounter a variety of challenges, from uncontrollable shaking and muscle stiffness to slow movements, and difficulty with balance.

While there is no cure for Parkinson, experts point out that early diagnosis is essential. Time interference with medicines and lifestyle changes can help manage symptoms and, in some cases, slow down the progression of the disease.

How does Parkinson’s smell like?

Milne first noticed her unusual talent when her late husband, Les, began to release a special muscle odor. Initially, she performed it, thinking it was just sweat or bad breath. But nearly a decade later, LES was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

At first, Milne did not think much about her raised sense of smell, which stems from an inherited state known as hyperosmia. However, during a support group for Parkinson’s patients years later, she noticed that the same strange fragrance was present in others.

“At the time I left, I can tell you who Parkinson had, who did it and who did not do it,” Milne Sky News told.

This aroused a moment of light for Milne, which had a medical background and immediately recognized the importance of its discovery. She arrived at Tilo Kunati, a Parkinson researcher at the University of Edinburgh, offering her extraordinary nose to help in the early discovery of Parkinson.

To prove her claim, the researchers presented Milne a collection of T-shirts that were worn overnight-some of Parkinson’s patients, others from healthy individuals-and asked her to choose them in two piles.

“It was very accurate,” Tilo told NPR.

Milne correctly identified each shirt, with one exception – it mistakenly laid a control shirt in the Parkinson group. But nine months later, the dress of that shirt was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

“Our early results suggested that there may be a special aroma that is unique to people with Parkinson,” Tilo said in a press release from the University of Edinburgh. “If we could identify the molecules responsible for this, it can help us develop ways to detect and monitor the condition.”

In the years after that, Milne has collaborated with researchers, including Curtita Barran at the University of Manchester, to develop a tool for early Parkinson’s discovery.

Scientists believe that the Milne aroma can detect may be associated with a chemical change in skin oil, known as Sebum, which is driven by the disease.

Thanks to Milne’s wonderful nose, Barran told the Telegraph that she is now “very close” to create a non-invasive skin test that can help diagnose Parkinson’s years before symptoms appear as well as monitor his progress.

“Not only is the test fast, simple and painless, but it also has to be extremely cost effective because it uses existing technology that is already available,” Barran said.

She expects the test to undergo early clinical tests at Manchester’s Wythenshawe Hospital later this year.