What does Parkinsonism smell like
Parkinson's disease is a very common age-related neurodegenerative disease leading to progressive death of dopaminergic neurons and severe motor function disorders. Despite the huge number of studies devoted to the study of the disease, to date there are no reliable methods of its diagnosis. Researchers from the University of Manchester, working under the guidance of Professor Perdita Barran, have identified compounds that form the characteristic smell of the disease, which in the future can be used as a diagnostic criterion.
Ancient doctors widely used the smell as a diagnostic tool. Despite the fact that olfactory tests are not common in modern medicine, some diseases, such as diabetes mellitus, are often associated with a certain smell. However, until now there was very little evidence in favor of the existence of odors characteristic of neurodegenerative diseases.
The exception is the case of Joy Milne, a former nurse with a unique sense of smell, which allows detecting the characteristic smell of the sebaceous glands of patients characteristic of Parkinson's disease even before the appearance of clinical symptoms of the disease. Sebaceous gland secretions are a thick, fat-containing biological fluid that moisturizes and protects the skin, especially the skin of the forehead and upper back, from external factors. Excessive production of this substance is a known symptom of Parkinson's disease.
The authors decided to identify the compounds that give the skin secretions the smell felt by Joy Milne, for the subsequent development of a new method for diagnosing the disease.
To do this, they used gauze napkins to collect samples of sebaceous gland secretions from the upper back of more than 60 people, both suffering from Parkinson's disease and healthy volunteers. Volatile components of secretions, potentially forming the smell of the disease, were isolated and analyzed using mass spectrometry. The analysis revealed the presence of hippuric acid, eicosan and octadecanal in the skin secretions of patients with Parkinson's disease, indicating a change in the levels of neurotransmitters in the body, and a number of other biomarkers of the disease. During a visit to the laboratory, Joy Milne confirmed that the odor samples containing these compounds correspond to the olfactory profile of Parkinson's disease.
The authors acknowledge that the results of this study are very limited, but believe that they open up new opportunities in the development of non-invasive screening tests for early detection of Parkinson's disease.
Article by Drupad K. Trivedi et al. The Discovery of Volatile Biomarkers of Parkinson's Disease from Sebum is published in the journal ACS Central Science.
Evgenia Ryabtseva, portal "Eternal Youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of the American Chemical Society: Sniffing out Parkinson's disease.