If you know me from summer times, you can attest that I serve as a super efficient mosquito attractant. That information is great if you are holding a BBQ party and looking for a pesticide free option. Not as much so if you are like me. Mosquitoes are attracted from a distance by CO2; then some 100 feet away, their scent and vision receptors take over. A UK study proved that our skin odor genetics is a key player.

Various solutions to prevent biting attacks are proposed online. The one that works best, other that preventing mosquito’s life, involves physical blocks such as screens, nets, light colors and long sleeves but those tactics are less than 100% secure. For the outdoors lover who bear great smell, or bad depending on your perspective, effective options are few.
Multiple factors influence our odor chemistry. For instance, as a blood type O, I bear a sweet smell for the blood sucking insect. What attracts and repels mosquitoes varies as much as human bodily odors. It is a complicated and perhaps smelly science.

The best proven tips to lower your risks of an attack :

• physical barriers (screens, nets, clothing of lighter color)
• repellents (DEET, icaridin, although slightly toxic not only to mosquitoes)
• masks with lemon eucalyptus, citronella oils which cover your odor
• decreased alcohol consumption
• removal of sweat after a workout (mosquitoes love lactic acid and sweet sweat smell)
• not using fragrant soap (they also like perfume)
• staying inside after dusk

Recently, the term microbiome emerged. We know it to be an essential player in our health as it regulates many functions. We should probably embrace its presence, the microorganisms composing our microbiome outnumber by tenfold our body cells.

Some bacteria of the microbiome are also responsible for bodily odors. The bacterium chooses its host based on genetic host signature preferences. So our guests microbiome is dictated by our genes. Just as much as our genetics, the bacteria we host have a unique signature smell. With as much variations as the odors that attract mosquitoes.
Another study showed that the characteristic cheesy smell of some feet attracts biting female mosquitoes. So the bacteria Bravebacteria linens chose the host for its genetic signature, gave it smelly feet and active mosquito predators. Bad genes.

I am not a host of B. linens thus other elements, such as my blood type and other unknown, make me particularly attractive to my BBQ piercing dates.
For now, your best option against mosquito bites may just very well be to invite me to your next outdoor event. As for myself, although the evidence has been inconclusive, I will look into vitamins…and will hope for the best. Fingers crossed. Behind my net.

MICROBIOME DEFINITION:

 icon-arrow-circle-right  Nobel Prize winner Joshua Lederberg defined in 2001 the human microbiome as:  “to signify the ecological community of commensal, symbiotic, and pathogenic microorganisms that literally share our body space”