51–60 of 77 posts
> But Joy's superpower is so unusual that researchers all over the world have started working with her and have discovered that she can identify several kinds of illnesses — tuberculosis, Alzheimer's disease, cancer and diabetes. The story for diagnosing Parkinson’s sounded plausible until this sentence. With Parkinson’s, you could imagine that she had some sort of sensitivity in her smell to a certain biomarker. Now…
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It seems safe to assume she has an especially good nose -- I figure she's the olfactory version of a tetrachromat[1] or supertaster[2]. She also had a relatively rare coincidence where she married somebody before his Parkinson's presented, and she witnessed its progression. I would assume that she isn't globally unique in her ability, but finding others with it is a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem: how do you effici…
> It seems safe to assume she has an especially good nose I wouldn't assume anything. And it might not be related to sensitivity in general, but sensitivity to a particular chemical. (Also, is the perception of smell tied only to sensory aparatus in the nose?) > finding others with it is a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem: how do you efficiently screen for this without knowing the precise compounds are to be targeted…
I guess, a nice impact of this story is that people with Parkinson's are gonna see it and ask their friends, "do I have a smell?" If she's not rare, we'll find out.
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Mass specs can detect down to the ten thousands? IIRC or so molecules.
But I don't think they can do that at the same time as having trillions of some other uninteresting molecule like water in them. It's basically a dynamic range problem.
> But Joy's superpower is so unusual that researchers all over the world have started working with her and have discovered that she can identify several kinds of illnesses — tuberculosis, Alzheimer's disease, cancer and diabetes. The story for diagnosing Parkinson’s sounded plausible until this sentence. With Parkinson’s, you could imagine that she had some sort of sensitivity in her smell to a certain biomarker. Now…
I bet most (type 1) diabetics could smell other diabetics if they were trying. High blood sugar especially changes your body odor a ton. You sweat a lot more sugar for your skin bacteria to digest. Not to discount the woman or the article, we should totally be researching this stuff
My grandfather had Parkinson's and always had a distinctive smell... when this finding first came out oh, maybe a decade ago, I knew exactly what they were talking about. Had another friend in adulthood - yup, same smell, and yes she was found to have Parkinson's. I don't have a particularly great nose, but it's a super distinctive smell.
I've always wondered why my grandfather smelled a certain way. Your comment made me realise that this was probably a side effect of Parkinsons.
My grandfather had Parkinson's and always had a distinctive smell... when this finding first came out oh, maybe a decade ago, I knew exactly what they were talking about. Had another friend in adulthood - yup, same smell, and yes she was found to have Parkinson's. I don't have a particularly great nose, but it's a super distinctive smell.
Could you describe the smell?
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I'm not sure any of today's mass spectrometers yet can match human smell in sensitivity, at least to some scents with larger more complex molecules.
"with larger more complex molecules." What are "larger, more complex, molecules"? Without trolling, I think scent cuts off at a MW 330 or something.
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I bet most (type 1) diabetics could smell other diabetics if they were trying. High blood sugar especially changes your body odor a ton. You sweat a lot more sugar for your skin bacteria to digest. Not to discount the woman or the article, we should totally be researching this stuff
Anybody can learn pretty quick to smell diabetics. Low blood sugar leaves one's breath bitter and metallic, high blood sugar causes fruity, sweet breath. It's extremely obvious if you're at all close to them.
Is there anything they can do about the breath? (ditto people on keto diet)
It took me until my 30s to discover other people didn't know/realise/detect this. But since I've shared it with people as an interesting party trick type thing I've found many people who could smell onset of a cold.
It's not surprising to me that people can smell so much more, as all of our senses differ from person to person, the range, intensity, sensitivity.
What does surprise me is turning that into a useful application that could be used by others without the same sensory capabilities, that's neat.
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If a human can do it, a dog can too, since their noses are so much more sensitive than any human's. I can imagine dogs reliably sniffing out many diseases, then this becoming a standard lab assay, or at least a component thereof.
When you feel sick, go get a "Lab" test.