Mosquitoes are very irritating creatures, especially in summer, before or while sleeping. Hiding from a mosquito is also next to impossible because they find people by monitoring breathing, body temperature, body odor. Some people claim that even though they are in the same house, mosquitoes only bite them. And the claim is not empty. Previously, different theories tried to explain this situation, such as blood type, blood sugar level, consuming garlic or banana, being a woman and being a child. But Leslie Vosshall, head of Rockefeller’s Neurogenetics and Behavior Lab, says there’s little reliable data for most of it.
WHAT ATTRATES Mosquitoes?
There have been different claims before about who mosquitoes most prefer to bite. However, many have not been scientifically proven.
So what does the new study say?
According to a study by a research team from Rockefeller University in New York, the people who attract mosquitoes the most are those whose skin produces high levels of carboxylic acid.
Within the scope of the study, 64 volunteers were asked to wear nylon sleeves on their arms. The three-year study used human forearm odor samples collected from these nylon sleeves and performed more than 2,330 tests over 174 days.
Aedes aegypti mosquito, which can spread viruses such as yellow fever and Zika, was used in the tests. There was a 100-fold difference between the most attracted to mosquitoes and the least attracted.
Vosshall says he expects similar results from other species, but more research is needed to confirm this.
Researchers found a common factor among favorites: Mosquito magnets had high levels of carboxylic acids in their skin. These oily molecules that attract mosquitoes are actually part of the skin’s natural moisturizing layer. Human bodies produce it at different levels. Healthy bacteria living on the skin consume these acids and form part of the skin’s odor profile.
DIFFICULT TO STOP Mosquitoes
Humans produce two main classes of odors that mosquitoes detect with two different sets of odor receptors: Orco and IR receptors. Scientists also tested whether they could breed mosquitoes that could not detect humans. The researchers created mutants in which one or both of the receptors were missing. Orco mutants continued to be attracted to humans and went to ‘mosquito magnets’ again. IR mutants lost interest in humans to varying degrees, but still retained the ability to find humans.
The study states: These were not the results scientists had hoped for. “The target was a mosquito that would lose all attraction to humans, or a mosquito with a weak attraction to everyone. That would be enormous for more effective mosquito repellents. But it wasn’t expected,” says Vosshall.
Vosshall emphasizes the resilience of mosquitoes for this situation and states that they always have a backup plan.
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