A simple smell test could tell you if you’re likely to develop Parkinson’s disease, which affects motor skills as we age. A reduction of our sense of smell is one of the early signals that we may develop the disease later on. Researchers who have developed the test hope that it might encourage more therapies to treat it in its earlier stages. Currently there is no cure for Parkinson’s, which affects motor skills, speech, mood and behaviour, and which gets progressively worse as we get older. Researchers from the University of Tubingen in Germany, who have developed the test, say that this gives doctors the ability to detect Parkinson’s at a far earlier phase when anti-Parkinsonian drugs might be more effective, and slow the disease’s progress. (Source: Proceedings of the European Society of Human Genetics, June 13, 2010).
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