A decrease in the ability to smell may be an early sign of Parkinson’s disease. Dr. G. Webster Ross of the University of Hawaii found that an impaired ability to smell may precede other clinical symptoms of Parkinson’s by at least four years and may increase a person’s risk as much as 500 percent.
Dr. Ross reviewed data on 2,267 men whose ability to smell was assessed by the Brief Odor Identification Test. They men, who were aged 71 to 95, were free of dementia and Parkinson’s. During eight years of follow-up, 35 men developed Parkinson’s. Dr. Ross found that the men who were in the lowest quartile of odor identification were up to five times more likely to develop Parkinson’s.
“This is the first population-based prospective study to demonstrate that odor identification deficits can predate the development of clinical Parkinson’s disease in men by at least four years,” the authors wrote.
“Olfactory testing together with screening for other potential early indicators of Parkinson’s disease…could provide a simple and relatively economic means of identifying individuals at high risk for development of Parkinson’s disease.”
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