A male patient of Parkinson’s Disease led to a new study-his widow found herself could “smell” the disease.

This 65-year-old Joy Milne tole the researchers that she noticed changes in the smell of her deceased husband and a few years ago he has begun to have Parkinson’s symptoms.

He died because of this disease earlier this year at the age of 65. The disease is a kind of neurological disease with the symptoms of slow movement and constantly shaking.

“I always had a knee sense of smell, and I have long found a very subtle change in smell.” said Milne from Perth, Scotland. “It’s hard to describe this delicate scent, but this is a slightly musky smell. I do not know if this is unusual and this is not perceived.”

About one out of five hundred people has Parkinson’s disease, which is a degenerative disease that is difficult to diagnose and it’s not curable.

 
After gathering the same smell of different diseases, Milne made an experiment on the link between smell and disease.
She can smell Parkinson from the T-shirt the patients wearing when they sleep, and because of this she was called as “super nose”. This promoted the project of finding out whether the disease is related to the odor in British.

 
“This is a very early research, but if it proves there is a distinct odor associated with Parkinson’s disease, especially at the early stage of this disease, it can have a huge impact.” said Arthur Roach.

“Not only for early diagnosis, but it also makes it easier to test whether drugs may slow down or event to treat Parkinson’s disease. Anyway, there’s no drug to achieve this currently.”

Scientists are studying whether there are conditions that can trigger changes in the sebum, which is an oily substance secreted by the skin. For the study, scientists need 200 volunteers. Samples taken from them will be analyzed at the molecular level and will be reviewed by Milne and group of smell experts in food and beverage industry.