A woman smelled Parkinson's 12 years early

Milne's husband Les was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease about 12 years after she first noticed the smell, and when she mentioned it to researchers at the University of Edinburgh, they tested her by having her sort t-shirts worn by patients from those worn by people without the disease.

Researchers at the University of Manchester then set out to identify the actual molecules she was smelling, analyzing skin swabs from 64 people, 43 with Parkinson's and 21 without, and finding a distinct chemical signature, including altered levels of compounds called perillic aldehyde and eicosane, in the sebum of people with the disease.

The signature was confirmed in a separate group of 31 people, raising the possibility of a simple skin-swab test for a disease that had no chemical diagnostic test at the time. Joy Milne herself became a research collaborator rather than just the person who started the question, and work is still underway to turn the finding into something a clinic could actually use.

One nose, twelve years ahead of a diagnosis.