Mosquitoes may pick up body wash scents
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The body wash you use in the shower can react with your natural odor, making it more attractive to mosquitoes.
Mosquitoes use a variety of methods, including detecting an animal’s body temperature, odor and the carbon dioxide it emits, to locate its next blood meal target.
To see if the body washes we use work, Clement Binauger and his colleagues at Virginia Tech and State University chose varieties from the Dial, Dove, Native, and Simple Truth brands.
First, two pieces of nylon were placed on one of the forearms of four volunteers and the area was wrapped in foil to collect the participants’ natural odors.
The researchers then washed a portion of each participant’s other forearm with approximately 1 gram of body wash for 10 seconds, followed by an additional 10 second rinse with water. Two strips of nylon and foil were then similarly applied to these forearms to collect the scent of the wash.
One hour after each sample was taken, two strips were taken for chemical analysis, one from the area exposed to body wash and one from the area not exposed to body wash. Did. Put in separate cups.
Researchers put them in cages with 16 to 25 females. egyptian temple Yellow fever-carrying mosquitoes were free to visit both cups.
The Simple Truth Body Wash appeared to increase attractiveness for all participants. This was measured by the number of times mosquitoes landed on strips with body wash compared to strips without body wash. Dovewash had a similar effect, but the increase in attractiveness was only noticeable in three of the participants.
Dial’s body wash similarly attracted participants to more mosquitoes, but to a lesser extent than Simple Truth and Dove.
In contrast, mosquitoes tended to avoid strips washed with native body wash, but showed a particularly strong aversion to native wash strips in one participant.
This suggests that the scent of the body wash and the participants’ individual odors combined to create an odor that the mosquitoes could detect.
“Our study highlights the importance of interactions between specific soap chemicals and each person’s body odor to determine whether mosquitoes become more attractive after applying soap to the skin. It’s important for us to do that,” says Vinauger.
Experimental chemical analysis suggests that the compounds benzaldehyde, benzyl benzoate, and γ-nonalactone may repel mosquitoes.
The researchers plan to repeat the study with a larger group of participants and more body washes to test the wash’s potential mosquito-attracting or mosquito-repellent effects after the wash has been washed off the skin. We will investigate how long it lasts.
“The discovery that personal care products can attract or repel mosquitoes from users opens the door for developing user-friendly mosquito repellents,” said Walter Riel of the University of California, Davis. rice field.
“Chemicals in such products may not directly affect mosquito behavior, but they can disrupt certain ratios of human emissions that attract mosquitoes,” he says. “Regardless of mechanism, reducing human-mosquito interaction mitigates vector-borne disease transmission.”
new scientist We reached out to the makers of the four body washes for comment, but did not hear back prior to publication.
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