Your Nose and PD

[rayilynlee <rayilynlee@xxxxxxx>]

Your nose may warn about onset of Parkinson's

From correspondents in Washington, United States, 11:31 AM IST

An impaired sense of smell occurs in the earliest stages of Parkinson's 
disease (PD) and there is mounting evidence that it may precede motor 
symptoms by several years, according to a study.
The study, by researchers at the Pacific Health Research Institute in 
Hawaii, found that smell impairment can precede the development of PD in men 
by at least four years.
Findings of the study have been published in the latest edition of the 
Annals of Neurology, the official journal of the American Neurological 
Association.
Led by G. Webster Ross of the VA Pacific Islands Health Care System and the 
Pacific Health Research Institute in Honolulu, Hawaii, the study included 
2,267 men who received an olfactory test and were followed for up to eight 
years to find out if they developed PD. During the course of follow-up, 35 
men developed the disease.
The results showed that a smell identification deficit could predate the 
development of PD by at least four years, although it was not a strong 
predictor beyond this time period.
A decreased ability to identify odours was associated with older age, 
smoking, more coffee consumption, less frequent bowel movements, lower 
cognitive function and excessive daytime sleepiness, but even after 
adjusting for these factors, those with poor odour identification had a five 
times greater risk of developing PD.
The pathology of smell impairment in PD is not completely understood, but 
nerve loss and the formation of Lewy bodies, abnormal clumps of proteins 
inside nerves cells that are thought to be a marker of PD, are known to take 
place in the olfactory structures of patients with the disease.
The authors note that one study involving brain dissection of dead patients 
with neurological disease found that olfactory structures are the earliest 
brain regions affected by Lewy degeneration, which supports the idea that an 
impaired sense of smell could be one of the earliest signs of the disease.
(Staff Writer, © IANS)

Rayilyn Brown
Board Member AZNPF
Arizona Chapter National Parkinson's Foundation
rbrown@xxxxxxxxx 

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