Field Notes: The woman who could smell Parkinson's, the power of movement on our body, & the myth of safety
"It's very, very clear from looking at all these tissues that when you exercise regularly, you are just a different person...."
Welcome to new readers and steadfast readers! Thanks for being here. This is an edition of Field Notes, an occasional roundup of three interesting things I’ve run across lately related to health and thriving.
Hello, dear friends,
One thing that happens when you write in fits and starts is that the world can change before you add the stamp and press publish. This note to you began when the weather was shifting from 60s to 70s, into a delicious summer season, with fresh evenings of long light, peach sunsets over the Hudson Valley mountains, dives into a chilly pool under the blazing sunshine.
Now a heat wave has been scorching much of the U.S., with more wild storms and a hefty hurricane season predicted, and I’m wondering how to stay cool, how our infrastructure needs to adapt, how weather affects our health, positively and negatively. It’s worrisome, I’ll be honest.
I wonder if focusing Field Notes on a specific topic each week, like health and extreme heat, mental health and the sentences in your head, or even resources around a specific illness, would be useful and interesting.
What do you think?
This week’s Field Notes is the usual potpourri. Enjoy!
1} Something surprising: The Woman Who Could Smell Parkinson’s
This incredible story from The New York Times magazine’s health issue spotlights the rare talents of a Scottish woman named Joy Milne, who has an ultrasensitive nose. She married her high school sweetheart, Les Milne, and stumbled across something surprising.
As the story explains:
On an August evening in 1982, shortly after his 32nd birthday, Les smelled “of something new and distinctly unsavory, of some thick must.” From then on, the odor never ceased, though neither Les nor almost anyone but his wife could detect it.
Many years later, Les is diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and the couple attend a meeting for people with Parkinson’s and their caregivers. There, Joy encounters the same odor again. All the patients had the same smell as her husband: “The implications struck her immediately.”
It takes time before researchers take her seriously, but eventually they do. The scent, it turns out, comes from three specific chemicals found in higher concentrations in sebum, a substance secreted by the skin.
Not only could Joy smell Pakinson’s disease, she could detect it before doctors could.
As you can imagine, this discovery has led to a whole array of new research and possibilities. The long read is fascinating, and it reminds me again of how much is left to discover.
Just because no one knows what a symptom means, why an illness happens, what causes what, how to detect a disease — it doesn’t mean we will never know. It only means we don’t know yet.
Read The Woman Who Could Smell Parkinson’s (New York Times gift link).
2} Something to consider: “Exercise may be the single most potent medical intervention ever known.”
That quote is from Dr. Evan Ashley, incoming Chair of the Department of Medicine at Stanford, in an announcement about a publication in Nature and extensive research studying the wide-ranging impact of movement on human and animal bodies, including the prevention and control of illness.
Dr. Ashley spoke recently with Dr. Eric Topol (on video with a full transcript) about the great difference movement makes for the entire body.
Here are few more quotes from Dr. Ashley about the research:
On a study of 300+ rats, both male and female, with a control group that didn’t exercise and one that did: “… the first thing I would say, we talked about just how potent exercise is. It's very, very clear from looking at all these tissues that when you exercise regularly, you are just a different person, or in this case, a different rat. Like literally every tissue is changed dramatically and some in quite surprising ways.”
On another study on a half a million people, correlating their physical activity over years with their likelihood of being alive or dead, “it was clear that one minute of exercise bought you five minutes of extra life. … And actually it's a little more, if you did high intensity exercise, one minute would give you seven or eight minutes of extra life.”
Finally, this quote:
“… people talk about an exercise pill. I think this shows that that is just not going to be possible. There may be ways we could mimic some elements of exercise, but there's no pill. This is a multisystem, multi-tissue, multidimensional response to exercise.”
I know I feel better when I move more. But sometimes, honestly, it doesn’t happen much — hours in front of the computer make up most of my workday. When I lived in a city, I could walk to the grocery, the library, the post office, work, but now I live in a place where I drive everywhere.
This research made me once more think that moving every day — a simple evening walk! — needs to become a daily habit, like brushing my teeth.
Anyone else feel this way? How do you make more movement part of everyday life?
Read the long (full of scientific details) conversation with Dr. Evan Ashley and Dr. Eric Topol.
3} Something to remember: “Seeking safety is very often the least safe thing in the world.”
Poet Andrea Gibson recently wrote a “Letter from Love” — answering a prompt from writer Liz Gilbert: What would Love want to you to know? Andrea was diagnosed with incurable cancer three years ago and writes from a particular perspective, one I find brave and wise and inspiring.
Andrea’s letter from love focused on the walls we build to seemingly protect ourselves, and what else they keep out. Here’s an excerpt:
“We are smiling as we whisper this to you. Smiling because of how often you need the reminder, and how happy we are to remind you, sweet security guard, that you are protecting yourself again. You are erecting walls between yourself and life, You know it, tender mason, by the bricks in your chest, walking into the doctor's office, bracing for more difficulties.
“We are here to remind you that there is no protection that will soften the grief, there is only the willingness to let grief soften you.
“…You finally saw your attempts to keep out the hurt would hurt you more than hurt ever could. Ever since then, you've understood joy is born from your willingness to feel everything that is not joy. But you've forgotten that today, sweet chemo brain. You've forgotten that seeking safety is very often the least safe thing in the world.”
Watch Andrea read her full beautiful letter in this video, below:
The video and text are also available to paid subscribers of Liz’s newsletter, Letter from Love, here. And you can sign up for Andrea’s own incredible newsletter, Things That Don’t Suck.
I hope you found something helpful, thought-provoking, or encouraging here today. May you have a beautiful day ahead.
To our journeys,
Brianne
p.s. 🔗 Bonus links 🔗
🎨 No One Knows What Works But Doing Stuff Works —
with a reminder for creators: "No one knows what works. That is not meant to be depressing, I actually mean it in a very validating and hopeful way.”🩺 The Need for Troncoconical Blood Pressure Cuffs — Informative post by
for healthcare professionals on cuffs for patients with conically shaped arms.💡 Physicians at Boston Medical Center Write “Power Prescriptions” — Energy from the hospital’s solar panels is fueling credits for patients who need help paying their electric bills; keeping the power on is critical to a healthy life, from cooling and heating to refrigeration for food and medications.
🚲 I Felt Free. The wonderful writer and chef
yet again captures an unexpected slice of motherhood in a way few essays do. Plus, a recipe for teff brownies. (Teff flour, which is naturally high in iron and fiber, makes up injera, the flat Ethiopian bread.)
Thanks for the kind mention!