A woman with an incredible sense of smell helps researchers discover diseases

Scientists have harnessed the "unbelievable" sense of smell in a woman whose husband had Parkinson's disease to develop a test to determine whether people have the disease.

The test took years after academics realized that Joey Milne could smell a special odor linked to the development of the disease.

Joy is now 72 years old and is from Perth, Scotland, and suffers from a rare condition that gives her a strong sense of smell, which helped her distinguish a special smell that resulted from her late husband's body when he was still 33 years old, 12 years before his diagnosis. He had Parkinson's disease.

It is a disease in which parts of the brain gradually become damaged over many years until many of the body's functions lose their vitality.

Ms Milne, who has been dubbed the "Woman Who Can Smell Parkinson's Disease", described the smell close to musk, noting that it was different from his usual smell.

 Her observation piqued the interest of scientists who decided to research what odor you might smell in this condition, and whether this could be harnessed to help identify people with a similar neurological condition.

Years later, academics at the University of Manchester made a major advance by developing a test that could identify people with Parkinson's disease using a simple cotton bud running along the back of the neck.

Researchers can examine the sample to identify molecules associated with the disease to help diagnose whether someone has the disease.

While scientists are still in the early stages of research, scientists are excited about the possibility that health authorities will be able to publish a simple test for the disease in public hospitals later.

Scientists believe the odor may be caused by a chemical change in the skin's oil, known as sebum, which is caused by the disease.

In their initial work, they asked Milne to smell the T-shirts worn by people without Parkinson's disease and those with the disease.

Milne correctly identified the shirts worn by Parkinson's patients but also said that one of the group of people without Parkinson's disease smelled of the disease and eight months later the person who wore the shirt was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

He hopes the discovery will lead to a test being developed to detect Parkinson's disease, and work on the assumption that if they can identify a unique chemical signature in the skin associated with Parkinson's disease, doctors may eventually be able to diagnose the condition from simple skin smears.

In 2019, researchers at the University of Manchester led by Professor Barran announced that they had identified disease-related molecules found in skin smears.

Now scientists have developed a test using this information, the tests have been successfully performed in research laboratories, and now scientists are evaluating whether it can be used in hospital settings.

There are currently no cures for Parkinson's disease, but a confirmed diagnosis will allow doctors to obtain appropriate treatment and access to medications that help relieve symptoms.

Milne is now working with scientists around the world to see if she can sniff out other diseases such as cancer and tuberculosis

And the "Indy 100 website" quotes her as describing her talent, "I have to go shopping too early or too late because of people's perfume, and I can't go through the chemical aisle in the supermarket."

“So yeah, it's a curse sometimes, but I also went to Tanzania and did research on tuberculosis and research on cancer in the United States - just preliminary work.

So it is a curse and a benefit.”

Milne revealed that she can sometimes smell the smell of people with Parkinson's disease while they are in the supermarket or walking in the street, but she cannot tell them that because of medical ethics, as no GP will accept a "man or woman who enters and says" the woman who smells Parkinson's disease you told me I have this smell?

Maybe in the future, but not now.

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