Dogs pick up Parkinson’s 20 years before symptoms appear

Dogs trained to detect early signs of Parkinson’s disease can pick it up 20 years before symptoms become apparent.

And they’re astonishingly accurate with a 98 percent success rate, even when a person has other health problems.

Even at the very earliest phase of the disease, sufferers start releasing an odour that trained dogs can pick up from skin swabs.

Researchers from Manchester and Bristol Universities in the UK have been working with Medical Detection Dogs, a charity that trains dogs to detect diseases.

The charity trained two dogs to detect Parkinson’s, and they sniffed 200 swabs, half of which came from people with Parkinson’s.

Claire Guest from Medical Detection Dogs said that trained dogs can detect Parkinson’s symptoms up to 20 years before they become apparent.  This means that very early treatment can start right away, and this may reduce symptoms later on or even reverse the disease completely.

The dogs used in the test were Bumper, a Golden Retriever, and Peanut, a Black Labrador.

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