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A body odor long dismissed as a normal sign of aging may in fact be an early warning sign of Parkinson's disease, a specialist has said.
Son Yu-ri, a neurologist, recently discussed the distinctive scent associated with Parkinson's patients — and the research it has inspired into early diagnosis — on her YouTube channel "Brain Tube."
According to Son, Joy Milne, a former nurse from Perth, Scotland, has a hereditary hyperosmia that allows her to detect subtle odors imperceptible to others.
In 1986, she began noticing an unusual musty, heavy musk coming from her husband Les, who was 31 at the time. She told him she could smell something strange at the back of his neck, but the odor persisted no matter how many times he washed.
About 12 years later, Les was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease at age 44 and eventually died from the illness. Seeking comfort after his death, Joy attended a Parkinson's support group — and was startled to find that the other patients there smelled exactly like her husband had.
When her story became known, British researchers set out to test her ability. They had six Parkinson's patients and six healthy adults each wear a T-shirt overnight, then asked Joy to identify the patients by smell alone. She correctly picked out every T-shirt worn by a Parkinson's patient.
Particularly striking was her identification of one T-shirt from the healthy control group as belonging to a Parkinson's patient — a man who was in fact diagnosed with the disease eight months later.
"What was once thought to be simply an age-related body odor has turned out to be a potential early signal of Parkinson's disease," Son said.
She explained that Parkinson's disease results from damage to dopamine-producing nerve cells, and that this process also alters the autonomic nervous system — particularly increasing sebaceous gland activity and sebum secretion in the upper back and the back of the neck.
"As the skin's microbial environment also changes, the combination of volatile compounds released by the body shifts, and this may give rise to the distinctive odor associated with Parkinson's patients," she added.
Research has corroborated the existence of a Parkinson's-specific scent. Recent studies have found that Parkinson's patients produce more sebum due to increased yeast, enzyme and hormone activity, with a significant rise in volatile organic compounds detected in that sebum.
Researchers are now working to harness these odor compounds for early diagnosis. A joint research team from Zhejiang University and Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine developed an AI-based "electronic nose," or e-nose, capable of analyzing chemical components.
Analyzing sebum collected from the backs of 31 Parkinson's patients and 32 healthy adults, the team found clear differences in compounds including octanal, hexyl acetate and perillic aldehyde. In subsequent validation research, the e-nose achieved approximately 70.8 percent accuracy in distinguishing Parkinson's patients from healthy individuals.
"Although the research is still at an early stage, if performance improves, the portability of the e-nose and its low analysis cost could make it a valuable tool for the early diagnosis of Parkinson's disease," the research team said.
bbo@heraldcorp.com
