WOMAN ABLE TO IDENTIFY PARKINSONS DISEASE NOW HELPING TO PAVE WAY FOR A MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGH

A 75-year-old Scottish woman named Joy Milne was born with an incredibly keen sense of smell, and she has the amazing capacity to identify Parkinson's illness by its aroma. As part of a study supported by the Michael J. Fox Foundation, she is currently collaborating with Perdita Barran, a researcher at the University of Manchester, to create a swab-based test for early detection.

Milne, a former nurse, first became aware of her extraordinary gift at just 6 years old. She told her grandmother that her friends “really smell,” prompting her grandmother to reveal that this heightened sense of smell ran in their family. Milne accepted the condition, later discovered to be known as hyperosmia, as her superpower.

At the age of 28, Milne became aware of a unique and peculiar smell emanating from her husband, Les Milne. At the age of 45, her spouse was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease 17 years later, a diagnosis she was unable to convey at the time. Years later, Milne's realisation became more apparent when she went to a Parkinson's support group with her husband. She smelled the same odd smell coming from the inside of someone else's coat. At that point, she decided to consult experts to learn how her skills may help others.

Barran and Milne have been collaborating since they first met in 2013. Barran set up a short pilot research utilising T-shirts worn overnight by both Parkinson's sufferers and healthy volunteers to investigate Milne's claim that she could smell Parkinson's. After giving them all a sniff, Milne correctly identified all but one, putting a control shirt in the Parkinson's group by mistake. But nine months later, that person also received a Parkinson's diagnosis. In addition to passing the test, Milne had identified the illness before the medical professionals did.

The fastest-growing neurological condition in the world and the second most prevalent neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer's is Parkinson's disease, which presently has no known cure. It happens when the substantia nigra, a region of the brain involved in movement and muscle control, starts to lose its dopamine-producing neurons. Milne's ability to identify Parkinson's disease early is even more important because the disease is frequently not recognised until 60% to 80% of these neurons have been destroyed.

Barran credits Milne with helping her get "extremely close" to creating a test for early Parkinson's diagnosis. She is now working with The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research to develop a swab test. Since the forehead and upper back have the oiliest skin, they intend to take sebum samples from these areas. "We want to discover whether persons with PD have a distinct sebum profile that is related to a distinct odour profile that can be recognised and identified/discriminated utilising proposed human/canine/analytical platforms," says Fox, who was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease at the age of 29.

Milne's acute sense of smell allows her to identify more than Parkinson's disease. Remarkably, she asserts that distinct scents are associated with various diseases. In an interview, she stated, "I would know if someone's diabetes was going off." "I could tell whether someone was having difficulties after surgery. The big one was entering a Nightingale ward with eighteen beds and smelling tuberculosis," she continues. It isn't as musky as Parkinson's. It smells more like greasy biscuits.