The Odor of Imminent Death

Final responders know that death has its own particular odor, unique as a fingerprint. Once experienced, it’s not often forgotten: decomp-specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) make the scent unmistakeable. 

But how is an equally-recognizable death-adjacent odor sometimes perceived among the living in environments like nursing homes? Many do die in such places; does death’s essence just remain forever in the atmosphere, lingering after the bodies have been removed like a malodorous haunting from an afterworld of funk? 

Or does impending death have a scent? 

Indeed it does

The same way we might detect Great Auntie Gertie’s presence by her wafting perfume that arrives in the room before she does, we can detect metabolic changes caused by different disease nearing terminus. The type of odor depends on the type of chemical malfunction. 

While it isn’t the only type of fatal disease that can be detected by the sense of smell at advanced stages, cancer is one prolific example. It has an entire library of odors associated with its famously scorched-earth-level destruction of tissues, nearly as many as there are types of cancer. Lung cancer’s fluid-soaked bacteria breath carries an earthy, sweet odor, and advanced tumors that outgrow their blood supply and die in place produce a rotting meat smell that can be overpowering (the same “rotting meat” that accompanies fungating wounds and gangrene). Renal failure carries the scent of ammonia, and putrescine/cadaverine is common with the protein breakdown that occurs with many types of tumors. Additional common emissions of volatile organic compounds include methanethiol and dimethyl sulfide (rotten cabbage/garbage); while colorectal and liver carcinomas, as well as some brain cancers, cause dysregulation of sulfur metabolism that results in overproduction of volatile sulfur compounds  creating a powerful sulfuric odor that intensifies as diseased tissues break down. 

SNAFU

Metabolic hijacking of cellular activity is cancer’s calling card. The chemical derailings of tumor growth run amok and emanate invasive pathological effluvia in the form of gaseous emissions. Foul-smelling and toxic breath, excretions, and flatus of the patient carry the disease’s olfactory signature.

The catastrophe isn’t restricted to the site of the tumor. Cellular metabolism should perform critical duties of circulation and waste-control, politely, proficiently flushing byproducts and mixing the various enzymatic cocktails that fuel healthy function. As cancer progresses this process breaks down; cascading biochemical failures follow. Life’s intricate choreography falls apart, kicking normal cellular function into terrifying acceleration. The consequences are inferno-grade metabolic wildfires replacing the civilized, precision candle flames of homeostatic health.

Terminal disease is especially insidious this way. Illness appropriates behaving metabolites to override regular function, burn them as fuel, and destroy healthy cells in the process. Autoimmune function and other vital systems halt as the body busily builds tumors instead. This unsanctioned biochemical malfeasance pollutes the entire ecosystem, resulting in an odor of ruin detectable on the breath.