The woman who smelled Parkinson’s

How Joy Milne’s realization that her husband had started smelling funny changed the landscape of Parkinson’s research.

Do you know that the human body consists of tens of trillions of human and microbial cells? These cells make numerous chemical compounds. Some of these are compounds that can be volatilized to release distinct odours.

Ever wonder how you recognize someone you know well just by their smell? You, me and every other person on this planet has a distinctive odour fingerprint, a combination of over a thousand volatile organic compounds continuously released. This gives a unique smell to exhaled breath, skin secretions found in sweat and sebum, and urine. This odour can change with health, diet, medication and …

Author

Anirban Mahapatra

Anirban, a microbiologist by training, is the author of COVID-19: Separating Fact From Fiction.

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