Super-smeller Gran who sniffs out Parkinson’s could have found secret to diagnosing the disease

A research study has been launched to find out if people’s skin odour could hold the secret to diagnosing Parkinson’s, after a Scottish grandma was able to identify the disease through sniffing their t-shirts.

In the wake of the discovery, the charity Parkinson’s UK is funding the study which it says “has the potential to throw Parkinson's into a completely new light”.

There is currently no cure for Parkinson's, which is a progressive neurological condition, causing progressive tremors, stiffness and slowness of movement. Around 127,000 people in Britain have the disease and it tends to be older people who have Parkinson’s. Billy Connolly was diagnosed with the disease in 2012.

Professor Perdita Barran of the University of Manchester who is carrying out the study hopes to be able to identify differences in chemicals present on the skin surface of people with Parkinson's.

Dr Arthur Roach, director of research at Parkinson's UK, said: “Funding pioneering studies like this have the potential to throw Parkinson's into a completely new light.

“It's very early days in the research, but if it's proved there is a unique odour associated with Parkinson's, particularly early on in the condition, it could have a huge impact.

“Not just on early diagnosis, but it would also make it a lot easier to identify people to test drugs that may have the potential to slow, or even stop Parkinson's, something no current drug can achieve.”

The study was triggered by a Scottish woman, Joy Milne, who successfully identified people with Parkinson’s by smelling T-shirts they had slept in. She could even smell subtle changes in people’s skin odour, who had not yet developed the disease.

The grandmother-of-seven first noticed a change in her husband Les's odour over 20 years ago when he was diagnosed with Parkinson's, describing it as a “heavy, slightly musky aroma”.

She was attending a Parkinson’s UK research lecture at Edinburgh University and mentioned the smell she had noticed to a researcher who then found she could detect it in other people as well as her husband.

Researchers believe that Parkinson's may cause changes in the sebum – an oily substance in the skin of people with the condition that results in a unique and subtle odour on the skin only detectable by people with a keen sense of smell.

The team aim to recruit up to 200 people with and without Parkinson's to have a skin swab taken and fill in a brief questionnaire.

The samples will be analysed by Professor Perdita and her team to look for differences in the amount and type of chemicals present.

The samples, which will be anonymised, will also be assessed by the original 'supersmeller' who was the inspiration for the project, as well as a team of other smell experts from the food and drink industry.