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Plasmodium-associated changes in human odor attract mosquitoes

pnas.org

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Re: Plasmodium-associated changes in human odor attract mosquitoes

#21

Post by ralf07 »

ItsMe000001 wrote: post #5
fegu wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mosquitoes are attracted to co2. You are probably just bigger than your wife, exhaling more co2.

That reasoning never quite made sense to me because if that was a or the major reason, why do I have the signs of unwanted mosquito encounters mostly on or my feet and ankles? If that theory indeed is true I think CO2 is just a rough guide to find the approximate location (within meters) of something alive with blood. I think once close other guidance systems might take over. My above opinion isn't worth much, but th…

Feet have more odour I guess. :)

Re: Plasmodium-associated changes in human odor attract mosquitoes

#22

Post by todd8 »

ItsMe000001 wrote: post #5
fegu wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mosquitoes are attracted to co2. You are probably just bigger than your wife, exhaling more co2.

That reasoning never quite made sense to me because if that was a or the major reason, why do I have the signs of unwanted mosquito encounters mostly on or my feet and ankles? If that theory indeed is true I think CO2 is just a rough guide to find the approximate location (within meters) of something alive with blood. I think once close other guidance systems might take over. My above opinion isn't worth much, but th…

CO2 is 44g/mol vs 29g/mol for air so perhaps it’s higher density causes more concentration close to your ankles.

Re: Plasmodium-associated changes in human odor attract mosquitoes

#23

Post by arbitrage »

neves wrote: post #16

Mosquitos love me, but when I know I'll go to a place with a lot of them, I start taking B12 vitamin. It was a tip a friend of mine gave me, and it usually works. I don't know why and never read anything about it.

Interesting. I started taking B12 supplements this winter. I usually get swarmed by mosquitoes in the summer. It will be interesting to see if my experience changes this season.

Re: Plasmodium-associated changes in human odor attract mosquitoes

#24

Post by CWuestefeld »

neves wrote: post #16

Mosquitos love me, but when I know I'll go to a place with a lot of them, I start taking B12 vitamin. It was a tip a friend of mine gave me, and it usually works. I don't know why and never read anything about it.

Sorry to be that guy, but this is probably not true.

the notion that ingesting certain products like B vitamins (or garlic, for that matter) might repel mosquitoes is common, but unfounded. Based on scientific studies I was able to dig up, B vitamins are not effective mosquito repellants, and vitamin B12, specifically, is not well-studied.

What scientists know more about is another B vitamin - B1 - also known as thiamine. As part of a larger survey of effective mosquito repellants, a 2002 study in the New England Journal of Medicine reported that, "No ingested compound, including garlic and thiamine (vitamin B1), has been found to be capable of repelling biting arthropods." -- http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/21/can-vitamin-b12-pre...

Re: Plasmodium-associated changes in human odor attract mosquitoes

#25

Post by saltcured »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #24
neves wrote: post #16

Mosquitos love me, but when I know I'll go to a place with a lot of them, I start taking B12 vitamin. It was a tip a friend of mine gave me, and it usually works. I don't know why and never read anything about it.

Sorry to be that guy, but this is probably not true. the notion that ingesting certain products like B vitamins (or garlic, for that matter) might repel mosquitoes is common, but unfounded. Based on scientific studies I was able to dig up, B vitamins are not effective mosquito repellants, and vitamin B12, specifically, is not well-studied. What scientists know more about is another B vitamin - B1 - also known as thia…

I wonder whether some of these folk remedies might affect the response to bites, i.e. modulating the immune system response and inflamation...

My wife always claims to be a mosquito magnet, but I have thought about it in various situations like camping and touring the tropics. I am not sure if she is getting harassed more than me, or if she just reacts more strongly to all the bites. Some of my bites are very mild, and I could believe that there might be more that I don't even notice.

Re: Plasmodium-associated changes in human odor attract mosquitoes

#26

Post by jraines »

I wonder if this is something dogs could be trained to detect.

I used to live near a creek where there were lots of mosquitoes, and when my roommates and I could go from the car to the house on a bad day, most of us would get bitten 0-1 times, and one would get bitten 3+

Re: Plasmodium-associated changes in human odor attract mosquitoes

#27

Post by seymour333 »

sschueller wrote: post #3

Very interesting I am a person who mosquitoes love to bite but I don't have any disease (that I know off). My wife can lay next to me and not get a single bite while I am fighting them off left and right. I wonder what else can contribute to this difference.

See the reply by tomkinstinch. It is likely that the combination of gases produced by your skin's microbiome are more attractive to mosquitoes than that of your wife's.

This seems more probable than increased amounts of CO2 floating around your feet and ankles, especially if you are laying next to you wife where the aggregate CO2 from both of you breathing will be distributed fairly evenly between you.

A quote from tomkinistinch's linked article: "...washing the feet with a bactericidal soap significantly alters the selection of biting sites...".

I wish we were at a point technologically where it would be simple(and cheap) for a person to detect and catalog things like VOCs that skin bacteria produce, or quantities of bacteria on the skin to determine how they correlate with something like mosquito attraction.

It would be pretty great to be able to say definitively that x bacteria concentrations on your skin are attracting mosquitoes to you, rather than simply conceding "mosquitoes love to bite me".

Re: Plasmodium-associated changes in human odor attract mosquitoes

#28

Post by seymour333 »

tomkinstinch wrote: post #20

The community of microbes resident on skin (or rather, their metabolites) has also been shown to influence attractiveness to mosquitos[1]. Interestingly, some taxa were associated with decreased attraction, which the authors of the linked study hypothesize is due to a masking effect. Skin probiotics may be on the horizon for mosquito deterrence and other applications (think acne, eczema, etc.). The composition of the…

This is super fascinating, thanks for the link.

The next time I go on a nature walk I am going to soak myself in a bathtub full of bleach first, I'll be invisible.

Re: Plasmodium-associated changes in human odor attract mosquitoes

#29

Post by car »

tomkinstinch wrote: post #20

The community of microbes resident on skin (or rather, their metabolites) has also been shown to influence attractiveness to mosquitos[1]. Interestingly, some taxa were associated with decreased attraction, which the authors of the linked study hypothesize is due to a masking effect. Skin probiotics may be on the horizon for mosquito deterrence and other applications (think acne, eczema, etc.). The composition of the…

This company is working on an acne treatment based on bacteria: http://www.nakedbiome.com
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