I can smell cancer

They have and are looking into this.

here are some websites discussing research that scientists have done about detecting cancer with smell.

www.sciencedaily.com...

www.bestsyndication.com...

www.pastpeak.com...

www.cbsnews.com...

The last one even has a video about it. It is a really neat thing to read and learn about.

[edit on 15-11-2008 by gimme_some_truth]

Actually I can usually smell THAT sickly sweet smell too. Usually after I've just done a cleanse and I'm operating at high performance, it becomes absolutely unbearable some days to be out in public.

I thought it was the smell of burning 'sugars'. Sort of like when someone has had a high carb diet and are releasing the free radicals. In Vancouver where I live, I find that the smell is quite obvious in the organic stores like Choices and Capers, where alot of people eat mostly rice and grains.

I take public transit predominately where I live and sometimes I've had to get off the bus enroute just so I can breathe normally again.

reply to post by avriel

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Good topic here; thanks for posting it. When I was young, I worked as a nurses aide with terminally ill cancer patients. Such intimate contact with them gave me a close up view of their skin color changes, the changes in their eyes, etc. Ten years later when I went to visit my father who'd became sick with diabetes, I looked at him and instantly recognized he had the features of someone with cancer. About 6 months later, the doctors diagnosed prostate cancer with mets to the bones. Throughout my life, I am often able to see this in people, but I do not say anything. They probably already know they have it. I never noticed a particular scent in patients with cancer.

However, I once dated a man for about 6 months -- a near genius who was getting straight As in college. One night we laid down in bed, and I noticed the scent of his skin had changed. It reminded me of when I'd visited a hospital for mental patients on a high school field trip. Several days later, he became full blown schizophrenic. Since then, I've noticed the same scent he developed when I worked with mentally handicapped children as a cottage parent. I believe it is due to the biochemical changes -- it must alter the scent of one's perspiration.

Note: I just came across a few blips about this phenomena:

"...this identifiable or characteristic smell that comes out of the sweat of patients with schizophrenia and this has been known right back in the 1960s, where psychiatrists used to diagnose people with the disorganized version, the old term for that of schizophrenia, was hebephrenia. And what we've been able to do--we've just released a paper that's come out this month in Psychiatry Research, that reports for the first time the assessment of people with chronic schizophrenia, trying to detect this schizophrenia smell..."

from: www.schizophrenia.com...


[edit on 11/15/08 by aWoman]

Just to give a little bit of backup- I had a cat who died from cancer, and that smell was the same as everyone described- "sickly sweet," nauseating. I always thought it was due to rotting flesh. Maybe I am ignorant of the biochemical effect of cancer. It was definitely a smell I would attribute to death or extreme illness. Not the same as a decaying body though- that has a much different smell. My mom has a long history of working as a nurses aid and she also noted the smell of our cat. We both knew he would probably have to be put down, and we were right, unfortunately.

reply to post by avriel

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I believe you 100%. My mother had a smell that I would only be able to describe exactly as you did, a sickenly sweet odor. It started and even she noticed it, I didn't say to her that she had this odor, she told me one day that she could smell it and she had been putting on tons of deordorant and perfumes trying to cover it up. I instictively thought it was probably something to be concerned with. Shortly after the smell began, we were moving and she was helping to paint in the new house, and became overcome with fumes, couldn't stop coughing and was losing her breath. We rushed her to the emergency room, and in 1 short hour, she found out she had lung cancer. She recieved treatments, both chemo and radiation, and the smell continued. The cancer shrunk, until barely visable, but the odor stayed. A year later, visual disturbances and loss of feeling in her leg indicated the cancer had metasasized and was now in her brain. I noted while she was in treatment that others had that smell too. I was outside in the garden one day at the center, while she had chemo dispensed, and a very young girl came out and sat with me. At first I assumed she was with a parent who was getting treatment, but I smelled it. It was her. As my mom finished up her chemo session, the young girl was called in for her turn.

reply to post by aWoman

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Can you describe the smell of the schizophrenic boyfriend? One symptom of the disease is that schizophrenics stop paying attention to personal hygeine. Was this maybe what caused the oder?

What's with the tin foil hats?? I am a newbie here...help me out...did I miss something??

I think you missed the topic of this thread- no tinfoil hats here.

I hate to burst your bubble, but what you are likely smelling is the steriods that most cancer patients are on. Steriods, after long term use, gives the body a sick sweet smelling pungent odor. I know, because I have been on steriods long term for my MS and this sweet smelling odor is very present, and noticed by other people. Most cancer patients are on heavy doses of steriods when under going chemotherapy and radiation, and also after treatments.

"Steroids are chemicals that are naturally produced in the body to help control how it works. They are made by the adrenal glands above the kidney and by the reproductive organs. Steroids can also be made as a drug. There are many different types of steroids and they all have different effects on the body. Some types of steroids help destroy some types of cancer cells and can make chemotherapy more effective. "


[edit on 17-11-2008 by xynephadyn]

reply to post by gimme_some_truth

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A dogs sense of smell is 100s of times better than ours and have huge amounts of their brain devoted to processing and even well trained dogs are nowhere near 100% correct when it comes to picking out cancers

the second letter of my word is U (yes it's all in caps)

Wow- that is interesting, and I doubt it bursts any bubbles at all. Thanks for clearing up the mystery. I take it you're not talking about prednizone? Ive known many people on it for long periods who didn't have any unusual smell.

I had a long term boyfriend on predinizone (for ulcerative colitis) and he didn't have this smell either.

I think it's possible to have a heightened sense of smell even to the point of being able to detect certain diseases.

As a long time healthcare provider I can attest to the fact that pseudomonas has a very distinctive smell. No one I've ever met in the healthcare field denies that a diagnosis of pseudomonas can be made on smell alone. (of course the tests are run for the non-believers in order to confirm the smell).

Imminent death has a distinctive odor. No matter how bad the patient looks, I don't usually call the families to come in until the patient develops that odor.

Ketoacidosis has a well-recognized odor. Many diabetics have died in jail when they get pulled over and the cop thinks they're drunk because they "smell like alcohol".

I, personally, can not smell cancer but cancer (and AIDS) patients (terminal ones, anyway) all have a certain "look" to them.

It would be helpful to medical science if all the people who could smell cancer could get together for a few tests to determine what chemical reaction they are smelling.

Btw, wasn't there an episode on X-files about a paramedic who could smell cancer?

I know what you are talking about. I smell it on my husband. I smelled it stronger on my Grandfather before he passed away. From experience I can tell you that when you mix that smell with chemo therapy it takes your breath away. Chemo I can smell it strongest while he's getting it, then strong several days after, and decreasing though the week. It isn't a nice 'gift' to have to smell things like that. My family doesn't smell it, but for some reason I can.

Someone said that perhaps it isn't cancer you smell, but death. Well, I think death has its own smell to...much like the cancer smell but mixed with an oddly floral smell too. At least that is what it smelled like as my grandfather passed. It was sweet and sickly as you describe, but with an almost floral back drop. I can't describe it better than that.

reply to post by xynephadyn

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Cortolsteroids, like prednison, are given to help supress the immune system to keep chemo patients from having immune reactions from the meds. Taxotere, which my husband is on, calls for low dose Pred, and Dexamethazone just prior to infusion of the chemo. You are correct that the steriods do change the smell of my husband, as does the chemo itself. But both of those smells are...well...Taxotere smells slightly metallic and bitter to me. I can't say that those two smells aren't mixed (steriods and chemo.) But you can smell it on their breath and in their odor. When he has been off all chemical intervention is when I smell what Avriel describes.

I have a very keen sense of smell and I notice very different odors coming from different people. I have not been around cancer patients enough to attempt to correlate any particular smell with them, but I have definitely noticed many people who smell "sickly" for whatever reason.

One thing I can identify by smell is alcoholism. There is a difference between the smell a non-alcoholic has after consuming alcohol and that of an alcoholic. I learned this as a child, and I have never been wrong about it since.

I know the smell. It's gross. I'm not going to talk about it, except to say that you're probably right and you probably are smelling cancer.

reply to post by avriel

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Hello, OP. I'm not quite sure how to say this gently but I do mean it gently: What you are experiencing is nothing uncommon or special. In fact, it is a very well known fact cancer patients emit a very distinct scent associated with the disease. I was under the impression this is very common knowledge. Nothing unique or extraordinary about someone detecting the scent.

Actually, it is not unusual for humans to be able to smell Cancer. I too can smell it on others as can most if not all nurses and doctors. Another smell of an illness/complaint that humans can quite easily smell is Diabetes.