CNN's Tom Foreman explains why some individuals could be more attractive to mosquitoes than others, according to a new study. #CNN #News
Are you a mosquito magnet? This could be why
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Picaridin is like Febreeze for mosquito’s, without being a nerve agent like DEET, 33% of which gets absorbed through your skin. Picaridin is also safe for pets.
Lemongrass, used in Thai cooking.
Also found in citrus fruits, more in Lemongrass. Called oil of citronella when concentrated. Use Citronella candles indoors and “tiki torch” Citronella for outdoors.
@Stephen Jacks Mosquito’s love lemongrass were I live.
Ana: “I’m one of those people who gets eaten up by mosquitoes, why is that, Tom?”
Tom: “You smell like foot cheese.”
And they say the perfect woman doesn’t exist…
🤣🤷♀️
😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅
A lot depends on what you eat, the native Canadians know this decades ago. Forty years ago while up north in Alberta, a native Indian gave me a list of what fruit not to eat. The biggest was bananas, I forgot the rest. I love bananas but I refrain from eating them if in a mosquito prone area. So far it has worked.
I never knew this. I love bananas too.
@J.Chan Bananas are sweet but they are loaded with vitamins , compared to other fruit.
@K B so on a camping trip or a walk in the woods near water everyone should stay well clear of your Pan piper act of Hamlin for mosquitos….
@K B neither am I
@Marian Lincoln Maybe there are other alternatives to bananas ? Like Garlic ?
It’s me, I’m that person. While I sit here scratching the latest bites 😩😩
Same. I’m the person a mosquito will follow in a store or park. I have to wear pants because we have so many mosquitos here in California.
@LC use garlic wash in your garden. Spray the leaves and the top soil once a week with a garlic wash made from blending one bulb of garlic into 1 cup of filtered water. Keep the liquids and filter off the pulp. Dilute the solution 2 cups of filtered water for each 1/4 cup of garlic water (8 cups of finished garlic wash per bulb of garlic). Put the solution in a spray bottle and spray down your garden liberally once a week in the evening. Water your garden as normal. That’s how I keep a barrier around my mom’s house. She has diabetes and is a mosquito magnet. It’s safe for plants but makes all kinds of bugs leave, and it makes a great fertilizer.
😫 all my life I’ve been so proud of NOT having stinky feet yet thats the only place they always eat me. Im that person too apparently 😭
For a majority of my life, I have been a magnet for fleas and mosquitoes.
After I started taking turmeric for inflammation and pain, I rarely get mosquito bites, and never get flea bites.
Do you have Dogs? Fleas should be less likely unless you allowing them to live around you, theyre easy to kill off.
Tumeric is interesting for mosquitos though, like a lot of spices it does change your flavors as its excreted through your skin. Anytime I eat cumin I can smell it coming from my pours.
Well dang it, I can’t stand the smell or taste of tumeric no wonder mosquitos like me.
Interesting, I’m going to try
My oldest eats a lot of curry/mediterranean, he gets chewed alive.
Wow I must try this
Oh my gosh my oldest daughter used to get eaten alive when she was a kid a toddler and she would get huge welps from the bites. We live in GA so the summers mosquitoes are everywhere
Lemongrass, used in Thai cooking.
Also found in citrus fruits, more in Lemongrass. Called oil of citronella when concentrated. Use Citronella candles indoors and “tiki torch” Citronella for outdoors.
I am always the person outside who is least bothered by mosquitos. I never wear lotions or scented things. I eat lots of garlic in my diet. If the mosquitos are bad outside, I will occasionally walk over and stand in the campfire or BBQ smoke until they have moved on to easier victims.
Eww… the smoke is what I hate most about camping and BBQs lol. I’d just not go outside.
When we go camping, if the mosquitos are really bad we’d throw cow dung in the fire or lather ourselves in eucalyptus oil!
Here in Brazil the Summer is approaching, and the mosquitoes are already saying hello!
The ingredients of mosquito lures include octene-ol an alcohol. Caproic acid, acid associated with smell of goats and found in goat cheese and goat milk.
The octene-ol is easily air oxidized to Octanoic acid which I believe is the attractant. Long time between showers gives time for octene-ol to oxidize to octanoic acid.
I’m a little confused how this is a new study when this is something that I learned back in middle school biology not that people have different smells but different smells from people can attract mosquitoes
I mean anybody can make a generic claim without scientific proof but they now knew the specific smell or chemical that attracts mosquito’s the most.
Here in Wyoming, out in rural America we have known for years that Mosquitoes are drawn to Perfumed Soaps, Laundry detergent, deodorants, hair shampoos etc.
Mosquitoes also loved my friend who drinks too much beer and suffers from diabetes, they eat him alive.
The beer is carbonated…that is carbonic acid when the body breaks it down. 🙂 Does he still drink POP/SODA also ( sweetened or not? it would be the carbonation)
Do they still love him?
Actually, this could well have serious health benefits for the general population given how many diseases are spread through mosquito bites.
Deet already exists
@M P True, but it has drawbacks.
After getting bitten so much it spoilt a holiday, I tried altering my diet. I switched from drinking beer and lager, to gin or vodka. Definitely works for me. Happily I have to keep “Topped Up”, so its great fun aswell !!
This raises another question and a more simpler solution, diet? How you smell is greatly affected by what you eat. Perhaps eating certain foods can make you more or less susceptible to mosquitos. While you own biology does play an important factor you can’t change that but you change what you eat and when you eat.
Brewer’s yeast, high in thiamine (Vitamin B1) and used in beer, happens to be yet another natural mosquito deterrent. Though undetectable by humans, the odor of brewer’s yeast secreting through pores is repulsive to mosquitos
I go through periods of mosquitos being attracted to me and periods where its not a big deal and they don’t bother me. I always assumed it had something to do with my diet. They used to get me as a kid all the time. I do know this: I stopped eating sugar and when I started eating sugar again they literally clung to me. I love cheese and do not think thats the source of it because I eat the same amount of cheese. I love cheese. I always assumed it had to do with blood sugar. Also, if you’re around any body of water hungry mosquitos are going to come get you. Regardless. A hungry mosquito will target anyone if they are hungry enough.
That’s interesting! Also, I noticed that mosquitos attract to the black color! If I wear black clothes I get attacked by mosquitoes more than other colors!
It’s funny because it was literally the same case with me as a kid and now today. I never thought about the diet being a main reason, but it makes sense since I don’t eat much sugar as well
Bugs love me lol I found this out while fishing on a river with a group of friends. I was in a boat along side a friend and decided to gather on the river to chat. Every person barely had blackflies around them, but I was swarmed. I should’ve jumped in the river it was BAD! Didn’t because it was April in Northern Canada.
This wasn’t known long ago? Maybe not this exact verbiage, but I think it has been known for quite some time that certain folks attract mosquitos at a much higher rate than their fellow counterparts. Nice stuff to share though for those that were unaware.
To be clear, generally the quantity of those carboxylic acids on your skin aren’t detectable by the human nose. So if you’re a mosquito magnet it doesn’t automatically mean you stink.
But wow, I’d heard about this mosquito study before but I didn’t realize that the difference between people’s attractiveness to mosquitoes could be so vast! That would explain why I get bit so much less than my mom does. Even mosquitoes don’t find me attractive.
Also, another terrible thing- if someone has a mosquito borne illness, they become more attractive to mosquitoes. It’s clear those diseases have evolved to make that happen so that more mosquitoes will become infected, allowing the pathogen to reach more hosts.
I’d never thought of that correlation between the DISEASE and the passing it on because more mosquitoes were attracted to the odour of the DISEASE…. That’s frighteningly brilliant of the disaeses make up…
Yep, I get mozzie attacks but am renowned for having almost no BO in most situations.
My feet have never smelled even when sweaty.
Your assessment makes more sense than the sensational guff in the story.
Kind of stunned that this is “new research” … From personal experience this seems to be connected with what you eat. I usually get murdered by mosquitoes, except during one week I spent on a warm island, swarming with mosquitoes, when I was doing a seven-day fast. Then I didn’t get a single sting even though I didn’t use any kind of repellent spray. I assumed at the time that they must be able to “smell” the low level of sugar in my blood …