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Scientists discover the chemicals behind the unique Parkinson’s smell

economist.com

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

#21

Post by tapland »

amelius wrote: post #11
maxerickson wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But her sensitivity to smell means she is unable to enter the cleaning products aisle in supermarkets. To most people, the plastic packaging has no odour; to Joy, it is so intense she starts to retch. Is that even remotely true that people can't smell that aisle? I don't think I have an extraordinary sense of smell and I think of the smell of that aisle as "rank" or something like that.

I think I can smell that aisle, but it's from the detergent, not the plastic.

I think that distinction in the text was not the intended point. With 'the plastic' they mean the products, not the plastic packaging. Because of it was the packaging, made of common materials, entire supermarkets would be off limits.

And no, I don't think most people feel no smell in the cleaning aisle.

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

#22

Post by GuyGriffin »

lazyjones wrote: post #14
abhinai wrote: post #9

Smell represents an entirely new approach to medical diagnosis and in the next decade god knows how many tests we'd be able to develop using this approach. I am truly excited!

> Smell represents an entirely new approach to medical diagnosis It's not new at all. Traditional Chinese medicine has used it for a long time, among others.

Any examples of TCM / smell patterns?

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

#23

Post by kierenj »

dustindiamond wrote: post #19
rectang wrote: post #16

> perillic aldehyde, hippuric acid, eicosane and octadecanal It's tantalizing to see the names fixed in print. To make a software dev analogy, it's like finally reproducing a heisenbug and knowing it's very likely you'll find the root cause soon.

What is a heisenbug?

To me, it's a bug which disappears when a debugger is attached... by observing it you're modifying the behaviour. I see the other comment here, I'd not heard of that explanation..

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

#24

Post by pdpi »

dustindiamond wrote: post #19
rectang wrote: post #16

> perillic aldehyde, hippuric acid, eicosane and octadecanal It's tantalizing to see the names fixed in print. To make a software dev analogy, it's like finally reproducing a heisenbug and knowing it's very likely you'll find the root cause soon.

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.

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

#25

Post by gonesilent »

GuyGriffin wrote: post #22
lazyjones wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Smell represents an entirely new approach to medical diagnosis It's not new at all. Traditional Chinese medicine has used it for a long time, among others.

Any examples of TCM / smell patterns?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ok3EZnpaD4

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

#27

Post by viraptor »

gordaco wrote: post #6

This is exciting for two reasons. First, we could develop a measurable diagnosis based on this. Second, we can now search for the source of these chemicals and use them to better understand this illness, and that might lead to a cure. I love when people use these small time superpowers for tho good of everyone.

Does anyone know how close are we at the moment from being able to say "we're getting X smell, so here are the genes producing X producers"? I know we can (most of the time) say, here are the sites producing a specific protein. But are we able to find sites for second and higher order results yet?

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

#28

Post by bookofjoe »

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.

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

#29

Post by bookofjoe »

bookofjoe wrote: post #28

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.

See, for example, Maple syrup urine disease: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maple_syrup_urine_disease

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

#30

Post by lucio »

chrischen wrote: post #2

EDITED: She can also smell Alzheimer's, even before a person is about to develop it. https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1107030/dementia...

The diseases are already there, but can't be detected by standard tests and/or have no visible symptoms yet.
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