They’re just trying to make scents of it.
Kate claims she’s blessed and cursed with a hound dog nose — which is how she suspected she had cancer twice before getting a diagnosis.
“I knew I had cancer before I even brought it up to my doctor because I could smell it on my clothes and on my sheets, even after I deep-washed them multiple times,” she said in a viral video.
For her, the scent was similar to “a hangover” and wet, rotting wood with a little bit of cinnamon on her clothes and sheets. Upon going to her doctor, she was soon diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
After treatment, both her cancer and the smell went away, only to come back when she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer mere months later.
Though the ability to “smell cancer” is certainly rare, she’s not the only one making a stink.
Other people have posted shared their own experiences with noticing the “unique smell” of cancer, with some comparing it to a sweet, fermented scent like that of an “Amish friendship bread dough starter.”
While certain cancers have been known to change body odor, experts debate whether humans can actually smell the illness before diagnosis, noting that trained dogs can detect the scent.
There are a few theories about what’s actually happening when people like Kate claim they catch a waft and say, “There’s the Grim Reaper in your clothing, reminding you time is precious.”
Cancer can spread quickly because of abnormally rapid cell growth, which causes changes in the body and the production of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that can be detected in breath, urine, saliva and blood.
One type of VOC, polyamines, can be found in the blood and urine of those with cancer and may produce a scent.
Higher levels of VOCs have been found in those with breast, lung, prostate and bladder cancers. A sulfuric, rotten egg smell has also been linked to colon cancer.
Meanwhile, cervical cancer affects the scent of vaginal discharge.
An unusual smell could also be the result of an ulcerated tumor, which is a mass that has reached the surface of the skin and harbors dead tissue and bacteria.
Cancer treatments can also cause odd smells, as chemotherapy medications can both alter the sense of smell and produce various odors that come through skin, sweat or urine.
But Kate may have been on to something when she mentioned having a sense of smell like a dog.
Researchers have been looking into whether furry friends can detect cancer by picking up the scent of VOCs, as a dog’s sense of smell is between 1,000 and 100,000 times more powerful than humans.
There’s been plenty of anecdotal evidence of humans saying their dogs became more attentive or clingy before they went to the doctor and found out they had cancer.
One woman shared that both her and her sister-in-law’s canine companions picked up on her stage 2B triple-negative invasive ductal carcinoma, a deadly type of breast cancer.
One study even found that dogs were able to detect cancer correctly in 98% of cases when sniffing breath and urine samples.
However, it’s unknown whether the dogs detected VOCs in people without cancer.
Technology that utilizes chemical sensors is also being developed as a potential, noninvasive tool to detect cancer earlier through scent.
