Scientists have harnessed the power of a woman’s hyper-sensitive sense of smell to develop a test to determine whether people have Parkinson’s disease. The test has been years in the making after academics realised that Joy Milne could smell the condition.
The 72-year-old from Perth, Scotland, has a rare condition which gives her a heightened sense of smell. She noticed that her late husband Les developed a different odour when he was 33 – some 12 years before he was diagnosed with the disease, which leads to parts of the brain become progressively damaged over many years.
Mrs Milne, dubbed ‘the woman who can smell Parkinson’s’ described a “musky” aroma, different from his normal scent. Her observation piqued the interest of scientists, who decided to research what she could smell and whether this could be harnessed to help identify people with the neurological condition.
