Chemical differences in people’ earwax may be a telltale sign of Parkinson’s that could revolutionise the fight against the disease, new research suggests.
Parkinson’s disease, which affects physical movement by damaging the brain, is very hard to diagnose early on.
The high cost of brain scans means the only widely viable method is a specialist’s evaluation of physical symptoms, which develop only after significant damage to the brain has happened.
Since early treatment makes a huge difference in later quality of life, experts are keen to find other ways to detect it.
The idea that people with Parkinson’s give off different chemicals gained traction after credible evidence emerged that they smell noticeably different.
Joy Milne, a retired Scottish nurse in her 70s with a rare condition giving her heightened smell, came forward in 2016 after noticing a distinct change in the smell of her late husband when he began to develop the disease.
She was able to guess 100% correctly whether randomly picked items of clothing had belonged to someone with Parkinson’s.
Since then, early research proved promising for a skin swab test that involves running a cotton bud along the back of the neck.
Scientists believe people with Parkinson’s have different levels of certain compounds in their sebum, an oily substance produced by glands in the skin.
Now another potential method building on this may have been discovered by scientists from Zhejiang University in China.
Since earwax is made mostly of sebum, they decided to analyse samples from around 200 people who were known to be living with or without Parkinson’s.
Data on the chemical make-up of their earwax was into an algorithm that correctly guessed whether an individual had Parkinson’s or not 94% of the time.
This was based on the levels of four specific types of compounds, which were significant regardless of each person’s age and lifestyle.
Two of them, ethylbenzene & 4-ethyltoluene, are known to be signs of inflammation in the brain previously linked to Parkinson’s.
Another was pentanal, which has been linked to accumulations of protein clumps in patients’ brains that are a telltale sign of Parkinson’s.
The study’s authors said ‘early diagnosis and treatment are crucial’ for treatment.
It’s hoped their model could lead to a chemical testing device that could be easily distributed to clinics.
‘Further enhancements to the diagnostic model could pave the way for a promising new PD diagnostic solution and the clinical use of a bedside PD diagnostic device.’
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