Doctors Reveal What Different Illnesses Smell Like
When it comes to your diagnosis, all it could take is a really good nose. Doctors have admitted that certain illnesses give you a different smell than others.
For example, if you have diabetes your breath tends to smell like nail polish remover. People with liver disease give off a raw fish smell.
The BBC reports these findings, some of which come from Philadelphia's Penn Vet Working Dog Center.
While humans can’t always pick up these scents there are electronic noses that can do the hard sniffing for us. What are some other scents? A bladder infection makes your urine smell like ammonia, rubella makes your sweat smell like plucked feathers, schizophrenia makes your sweat smell like vinegar and yellow fever makes your skin smell like a butcher shop.
These electronic sniffers can be just as effective as a mammogram in smelling out breast cancer. Patients have often said they noticed a different smell coming from their partner and that’s what told them that they had cancer.
What diseases smell like | ||
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Disease | What to smell | Aroma |
Source: Alphus D. Wilson, Manuela Baietto, "Advances in Electronic-Nose Technologies Developed for Biomedical Applications", published in , published in Sensors | ||
Anaerobic infection | Skin, sweat | Rotten apples |
Bladder infection | Urine | Ammonia (window cleaner) |
Diabetes | Breath | Acetone-like (nail polish remover) |
Liver failure | Breath | Raw fish |
Rubella | Sweat | Freshly plucked feathers |
Schizophrenia | Sweat | Mildly acetic (vinegar) |
Scrofula | Body | Stale beer |
Typhoid | Skin | Freshly baked brown bread |
Yellow Fever | Skin | Butcher's shop |