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Scientists discover the chemicals behind the unique Parkinson’s smell

economist.com

31–40 of 68 posts

Re: Scientists discover the chemicals behind the unique Parkinson’s smell

#31
post #26

Parkinson's, Alzeimers and other neurological disorders will be cured in the future. What bothers me is that people from past and present will continue to suffer until then. We need to support scientists more.

Within the next 150 years, we’ll probably turn most diseases into something treatable as we slowly acquire knowledge.

Of course, imagine if we started rapidly acquiring knowledge, I’d be saying within 75 years.

Your choice.

Re: Scientists discover the chemicals behind the unique Parkinson’s smell

#32

First epilepsy (dogs), now Parkinson's. Leads me (retired neurosurgical anesthesiologist) to wonder if ALL pathology has an olfactory component that, with sufficient sensitivity of instrumentation, can be detected. Perhaps we won't require a "Star Trek"-type imaging device: just stand still and let the mass spectrometer do its thing.

Wow so 2 whole things are able to be identified by volatile chemicals and this leads to all?!

And I wonder how people like Holmes are able to survive for >10 years. We can deliver nicotine via patch, so obviously all drugs should be delivered that way. We can measure glucose from a drop of blood so obviously it follows that all blood tests run that way.

Where is the evidence that even a small fraction of the most common diseases have such a characteristic?

Re: Scientists discover the chemicals behind the unique Parkinson’s smell

#33
post #32

First epilepsy (dogs), now Parkinson's. Leads me (retired neurosurgical anesthesiologist) to wonder if ALL pathology has an olfactory component that, with sufficient sensitivity of instrumentation, can be detected. Perhaps we won't require a "Star Trek"-type imaging device: just stand still and let the mass spectrometer do its thing.

Wow so 2 whole things are able to be identified by volatile chemicals and this leads to all?! And I wonder how people like Holmes are able to survive for >10 years. We can deliver nicotine via patch, so obviously all drugs should be delivered that way. We can measure glucose from a drop of blood so obviously it follows that all blood tests run that way. Where is the evidence that even a small fraction of the most com…

He was just speculating. Also, dogs can smell cancer in humans.

Re: Scientists discover the chemicals behind the unique Parkinson’s smell

#34
post #32

First epilepsy (dogs), now Parkinson's. Leads me (retired neurosurgical anesthesiologist) to wonder if ALL pathology has an olfactory component that, with sufficient sensitivity of instrumentation, can be detected. Perhaps we won't require a "Star Trek"-type imaging device: just stand still and let the mass spectrometer do its thing.

Wow so 2 whole things are able to be identified by volatile chemicals and this leads to all?! And I wonder how people like Holmes are able to survive for >10 years. We can deliver nicotine via patch, so obviously all drugs should be delivered that way. We can measure glucose from a drop of blood so obviously it follows that all blood tests run that way. Where is the evidence that even a small fraction of the most com…

This is needlessly antagonistic. Though all pathology may be a stretch, the evidence for these two was only recently convered and all new fields start somewhere. Indeed, this line of thought brought us Theranos, but also brought us so much else.

Re: Scientists discover the chemicals behind the unique Parkinson’s smell

#35
post #32

First epilepsy (dogs), now Parkinson's. Leads me (retired neurosurgical anesthesiologist) to wonder if ALL pathology has an olfactory component that, with sufficient sensitivity of instrumentation, can be detected. Perhaps we won't require a "Star Trek"-type imaging device: just stand still and let the mass spectrometer do its thing.

Wow so 2 whole things are able to be identified by volatile chemicals and this leads to all?! And I wonder how people like Holmes are able to survive for >10 years. We can deliver nicotine via patch, so obviously all drugs should be delivered that way. We can measure glucose from a drop of blood so obviously it follows that all blood tests run that way. Where is the evidence that even a small fraction of the most com…

"We know Earth revolves around the Sun, so obviously all planets revolve around the sun? Ridiculous!"

Re: Scientists discover the chemicals behind the unique Parkinson’s smell

#36
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow so 2 whole things are able to be identified by volatile chemicals and this leads to all?! And I wonder how people like Holmes are able to survive for >10 years. We can deliver nicotine via patch, so obviously all drugs should be delivered that way. We can measure glucose from a drop of blood so obviously it follows that all blood tests run that way. Where is the evidence that even a small fraction of the most com…

He was just speculating. Also, dogs can smell cancer in humans.

Dogs have been shown to detect certain cancers at later stages (which greatly limits use as a screener.. not to mention how does the sensitivity/specificity compare to state of the art). This is not surprising since as cancers advance they cause gross biochemical changes.

The further issue diagnosing cancer/no cancer or epilepsy/no is an easy problem. But train a dog/machine on 1000 or more rare diseases. Now selectivity is an actual issue. And unless you manage to overcome that, how is all this scent stuff clinically useful?

Re: Scientists discover the chemicals behind the unique Parkinson’s smell

#37
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was just speculating. Also, dogs can smell cancer in humans.

Dogs have been shown to detect certain cancers at later stages (which greatly limits use as a screener.. not to mention how does the sensitivity/specificity compare to state of the art). This is not surprising since as cancers advance they cause gross biochemical changes. The further issue diagnosing cancer/no cancer or epilepsy/no is an easy problem. But train a dog/machine on 1000 or more rare diseases. Now selecti…

So the original "sniffer dog" study (The Lancet 8640)[0] pretty much covers a dog sniffing out a melanoma BEFORE it got to a later stage, and saved a woman's life.

I also dont understand how training a machine would have selectivity issues. Machines dont "get trained" on one thing.

0: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067368...

Re: Scientists discover the chemicals behind the unique Parkinson’s smell

#38

First epilepsy (dogs), now Parkinson's. Leads me (retired neurosurgical anesthesiologist) to wonder if ALL pathology has an olfactory component that, with sufficient sensitivity of instrumentation, can be detected. Perhaps we won't require a "Star Trek"-type imaging device: just stand still and let the mass spectrometer do its thing.

The right question to ask is "why wouldn't it".

Re: Scientists discover the chemicals behind the unique Parkinson’s smell

#39
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a heisenbug?

It’s a riff on Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle — a bug that changes behaviour when you try to observe it, typically the sort of bug that you can’t reproduce under debug conditions. Often they’re race conditions or other timing-sensitive bugs, and the debugger changes timings enough that the bug doesn’t trigger.

I fondly remember a bug that only appeared when print statements were removed. The i/o of the system out was just long enough for some buffer to clear, making the app work. That was very annoying.

Re: Scientists discover the chemicals behind the unique Parkinson’s smell

#40
post #35
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow so 2 whole things are able to be identified by volatile chemicals and this leads to all?! And I wonder how people like Holmes are able to survive for >10 years. We can deliver nicotine via patch, so obviously all drugs should be delivered that way. We can measure glucose from a drop of blood so obviously it follows that all blood tests run that way. Where is the evidence that even a small fraction of the most com…

"We know Earth revolves around the Sun, so obviously all planets revolve around the sun? Ridiculous!"

Last count I saw was that we know of 4016 planets, and only 8 revolve around the sun, so...
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