Remember when there were only 5 senses? It wasn’t that long ago since the movie “The Sixth Sense” came out. 1999, to be exact (SOURCE).
Well, since then there’s been a push to add more capabilities to our Human senses (http://www.7senses.org.au/what-are-the-7-senses/).
Not to mention unscrupulous corporations falsely creating “new” basic “tastes” just to justify the peddling of their poison. Can you say “umami”? (https://www.truthinlabeling.org/umami.html).
At any rate, I have lately become aware of yet another new basic “sense”: The ability to smell disease.
I think I’ll call it the “Sick Sense”. 😊
My thoughts on this started when I developed an increased awareness of smell over the last several years. Ever since I discovered how much Processed Food chemicals were affecting my health, I have become extremely attentive to what my body feels and experiences after eating. That, in turn, has made me more aware of all my senses, including my sense of smell.
I say more aware because I smelled things before, but just took them for granted. My suspicion is that most people are the same. We’re bombarded with smells all the time: Perfumes and aftershaves. Air fresheners. Vehicle Exhaust. To name just a few. We are so overwhelmed that we don’t notice all the intricate, individual smells that constantly surround us unless it is truly overpowering.
Now, I work in a hospital, where the air is probably cleaner than most environments due to enhanced air filtration and other things. One would think there would be fewer odors in this environment.
But I pass a lot of people in the hallways every day. Patients. Visitors. Doctors. Nurses. Other coworkers. There are a lot of different odors coming from them. And not just the patients, either.
So, what are all these odors coming from people? I believe it’s from a combination of diseases, medications, and foods that cause diseases.
I’m by far not the first to notice this link of smell to disease.
Here’s a good starter list of possible causes from the Cleveland Clinic: (SOURCE )
First, there are several long-known medical conditions and diseases associated with changes in a person’s usual body scent:
Diabetes
Gout
Menopause
Overactive Thyroid
Liver Disease
Kidney Disease
Infectious Diseases
Next, the old saying, “you are what you eat,” may apply to some body odor. For instance, these sulfur-containing foods may cause you to develop an unpleasant body odor:
Onions.
Garlic.
Cabbage.
Broccoli.
Cauliflower.
Red meat.
Finally mentioned: Other common dietary triggers of bad body odor are:
Monosodium glutamate (MSG).
Caffeine.
Spices like curry or cumin.
Hot sauce or other spicy food.
Alcohol.
For this article, I’ll focus on “medical conditions and diseases” and “other common dietary triggers”. I believe they are often linked. And I believe they can often be detected by smell. More on that later.
In fact, Doctors used to rely much more on smelling patients (and even tasting their urine!) in the past. This practice has been used since long before the birth of Christ, but of course Modern Medical Practice, which allows only minutes per patient (and currently often as a remote visit), has made this difficult, if not impossible today. This article goes on to mention how canines have been trained to identify diseases by smell. It also discusses the more recent Electronic Noses being developed to identify flavors and odors. (Disease and odor: An intriguing relationship: SOURCE )
And here’s another article that gets much more detailed, and makes several key points (The scent of disease: volatile organic compounds of the human body related to disease and disorder SOURCE ):
Hundreds of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are emitted from the human body. Did you catch that: HUNDREDS!
The components of VOCs usually (emphasis mine) reflect the metabolic condition of an individual.
Disease-specific VOCs can be used as diagnostic olfactory biomarkers of:
infectious diseases
metabolic diseases,
genetic disorders
other kinds of diseases.
This article has an extensive list of naturally occurring diseases and conditions that can be identified by VOC’s. But even they glossed-over what I believe could be one of the biggest areas of concern:
· Food Toxin/poisoning
This would be the man-made Food toxins we all encounter every day. Remember the dietary triggers above where I said, “More on this later”? Well, this is it.
All except one item they mentioned under “Other common dietary triggers” is a Manufactured free Glutamates (MfG’s) (https://www.truthinlabeling.org/hiddensources.html ).
Monosodium glutamate (MSG).
Caffeine.
Spices like curry or cumin.
Hot sauce or other spicy food.
Alcohol.
And it turns out MfG’s (Only one of which is MSG) have several toxic metabolic affects:
Monosodium Glutamate has been proved to be toxic for both humans and experimental animals. Here are the ways ( SOURCE ):
Induction of obesity and diabetes in MSG-treated rodents
MSG-induced hepatotoxicity and oxidative stress
Neurotoxic effects of monosodium glutamate
Genotoxic effects of monosodium glutamate
Now, even though you have no doubt heard that MSG is a “colorless, tasteless, odorless flavor enhancer”, according to at least two manufacturers, it DOES have an odor:
I also suspect that most all processed food chemicals cause metabolic diseases, which can then be identified by smell and that they account for MANY of the smells I have become more aware of.
I smell either the metabolic disease the person has, the latest toxic food or drink they have consumed (either on their breath, or from their clothing), or a combination of both. I can’t truly describe them, but they make me feel uneasy.
But one more part of the toxin/poisoning area of concern: Pharmaceutical drugs!
There is no need to quote sources on this, because, frankly, common sense tells you this must be true. Most pharmaceutical drugs are developed, not to mend or repair a natural biochemical process, but to replace or alter a broken process. That’s why there are metabolic side effects. Including an odor.
News Flash! EVERY Pharmaceutical drug most likely causes a changed metabolic process from either the medicating drug itself, or the “inert” ingredients. Just because an ingredient is listed as “inert”, doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect you. It just means it isn’t part of the intended purpose of the medication.
Here’s just one example of a legion: Chemotherapy Drugs
“The chemotherapy used to treat cancer may also cause a change in the smell of someone's urine, feces, and sweat”( SOURCE. )
So as I walk the hallways of the hospital where I work, my increased awareness of smell makes me uneasy and concerned for the patients, co-workers, and visitors that I pass.
However, my increased awareness of smell is not truly “The Sick Sense”, or 8th Sense. I’m aware of differences, but I can’t tell you who has what disease, or who may develop a disease based on what they’ve been eating. I just know there’s a lot of them.
But there ARE people that do actually have this sense. Super-smellers.
“Meet the super-smeller who can diagnose Parkinson's at a sniff”: (SOURCE )
The rest of us will need to rely on further development of Electronic Noses.