ATTENTION TO HEALTH ISSUES

ARE YOU A MOSQUITO MAGNET? IT'S BECAUSE OF HOW YOU SMELL.

Your body is a big protein shake that smells like stinky feet for hungry mosquitoes, a new study has found
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By Teddy Amenabar
October 18, 2022 at 11:00 a.m. EDT
New research shows why some people are mosquito magnets.
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Some people are magnets for mosquitoes, emitting a tantalizing combination of chemicals that invite the pesky insects to dine on them.

Researchers at Rockefeller University in New York found people who have higher levels of certain acids on their skin are 100 times more attractive to the female Aedes aegypti, the type of mosquito responsible for spreading diseases such as dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever and Zika.

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The findings, published Tuesday in the journal Cell, could lead to new products that could mask or alter certain human odors, making it harder for mosquitoes to find human blood and potentially curbing the spread of disease.

Mosquito-borne diseases impact about 700 million people per year, and experts expect that number to increase as global temperatures rise, said Jeff Riffell, a professor at the University of Washington and a mosquito expert who wasn’t involved in the research. The A. aegypti mosquitoes are known to live in tropical or subtropical climates, but the insect now breeds year-round in the District and parts of California.

Just by breathing, we’re broadcasting to mosquitoes that we’re there, said Leslie Vosshall, the chief scientific officer at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the lead researcher behind the new study. Female mosquitoes are built to bite for blood because without it they won’t have enough protein to reproduce.

“Think of it like a big protein shake,” Vosshall said. “It’s a way for them, over the course of one minute, to take in the equivalent of 150 pounds of food and then use that to produce eggs.”