Mosquitoes are known for hunting down their preferred ‘human snacks’ through CO2 exhalations, body heat, and odour. But, some of us often complain of getting more than our fair share of bites.
There are numerous theories on why mosquitoes may prefer some humans over others — blood type, blood sugar level, being a woman or a child, all without enough credible data.
According to the study published in the article, “Differential mosquito attraction to humans is associated with skin-derived carboxylic acid levels.”
They recently demonstrated that fatty acids emanating from the skin may create a heady perfume that mosquitoes can’t resist. They published their results in Cell.
In the three-year study, eight participants were asked to wear nylon stockings over their forearms for six hours a day. They repeated this process on multiple days. Over the next few years, the researchers tested the nylons against each other in all possible pairings through a round-robin style “tournament.”
They used a two-choice olfactometer assay that De Obaldia built, consisting of a plexiglass chamber divided into two tubes, each ending in a box that held a stocking. They placed Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes — the primary vector species for Zika, dengue, yellow fever, and chikungunya — in the main chamber and observed as the insects flew down the tubes towards one nylon or the other.
