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Spotting Parkinson's disease early can make a big difference – not just for treatment, but also for helping patients and researchers understand it better. Now, scientists have found a surprising new clue: earwax. The earlier Parkinson's disease is spotted, the better – for patients, their loved ones, and scientists working toward treatments or a cure.

Now, a new China-based study has found that volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in earwax could carry chemical signals of the neurological disease. A team from China's Zhejiang University discovered that certain chemical compounds in earwax, called volatile organic compounds (VOCs), may show early signs of Parkinson's. These compounds are affected by things like inflammation and nerve damage, which happen in Parkinson's.

Zhejiang University researchers seem to have leveraged the earlier findings by researchers in the matter that proved that Parkinson's subtly alters body odour, through changes in sebum, the oily substance that naturally moisturises our hair and skin. Sebum, the oily secretion that helps keep our skin and hair naturally moisturised, can be produced more in people with Parkinson's.

In 2019, after a Scottish woman astonished doctors with her ability to detect Parkinson's disease through smell, scientists or researchers at the University of Manchester in the UK reportedly told BBC that it helped them identify the molecules on the skin linked to the smell, a finding that may likely lead to early detection of the disease in the future.

According to Science Alert, sebum on skin is easily affected by air and the environment, which can make it tricky to study. That's where earwax comes in, as it's more protected and stable, making it a better sample for testing.

Those VOCs can be altered by inflammation, cell stress, and neurodegeneration in the brain, say the researchers. Using this data, they also trained an AI model that could detect Parkinson's with over 94% accuracy. 

Scientists say that this research should be taken further to use the identified VOC changes as a chemical fingerprint. When considered and studied along with other changes or markers (which may be happening because of PD or perhaps which may be the trigger to the disease itself), the process may help diagnose PD earlier, stop its further march, or even eliminate it altogether. 

Research Methodology

• Swabs were taken from 209 study participants, 108 of whom had been given a Parkinson's disease diagnosis.
• Differences in earwax composition between people with and without Parkinson's were compared and analysed.
• Four VOCs stood out: ethylbenzene, 4-ethyltoluene, pentanal, and 2-pentadecyl-1,3-dioxolane.

Why These Findings Matter

These findings could be the foundation around which further tests can be carried out, to propel focused and intensive research that could one day help doctors diagnose Parkinson's Disease earlier than it currently is, in any potential patient. 

As Hao Dong, the biochemist from the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, explains, the next step is testing this method in more places, in larger studies with more people from different backgrounds, and at different stages of Parkinson's. 

While this is just the beginning, researchers hope this could one day lead to a simple ear swab test to detect Parkinson's earlier, faster, and more affordably than current methods like long-drawn clinical assessments and complex brain scans.

The findings could also help ongoing studies understand how Parkinson's begins and how it might be stopped.