Did you know that mosquitos are the number one cause of death in humans, when you sit back and consider that, it’s a quite shocking statistic. And over the course of a year over 700 million people end up with a disease as a direct consequence of these pesky creatures. In effect, they are like a bee in how they transmit diseases. A bee transmits the pollen from one flower to the next, but for those mosquitos, things are a lot more serious. They bite us and then come into contact with our blood. But the more serious issue is they are doing this is a huge scale, and are therefore almost guaranteed to be carrying infections within their body. That is one of the reasons that makes a bite from a mosquito so dangerous, because you have literally no way of knowing what they are carrying, and their bite and their germs are being transmitted directly into your blood stream.
There always seems to be some sort of global disease spreading across the world and the current epidemic is the Zika Virus, I am certain I don’t need to give you three guesses to decide which animal is responsible for spreading this disease. And this is not the first disease these insects have helped spread. Due to the sheer volume of mosquitoes and the volume of people they bite they are like an Exocet missile for delivering and transporting diseases. Historically and purely as a result of mosquitoes diseases such as encephalitis, dengue, malaria and West Nile Virus have all been spread virtually exclusively by mosquitos. And the real issue is that there really is no 100 percent effective way to prevent yourself getting bitten. There are different things such as mosquito nets that will help but mosquitos are determined creatures and they will either bite you or die in the process of trying.
Not everyone is created equal, and the certainly applies to your attractiveness to mosquitos. Unfortunately, about 85% of what makes one person attractive to a mosquito is purely in their genetic makeup, which means that there is very little you can do to alter that. That’s why some partners who sleep in the same bed at night will wake up with different results. One person may have been bitten on numerous occasions, whilst the other doesn’t have one bite on their body. Sometimes life is so unfair. But for that last fifteen percent, there are certain factors that can have an effect on your attractiveness to these pests, and for some of them at least, you can take some preventative action, to at least try to increase your chances of not being bitten.
1 Carbon Dioxide – Studies show that the more carbon dioxide you produce the more attractive you become for mosquitos. So if you are perhaps a little overweight, or ladies if you are pregnant then this will increase your carbon dioxide production, increasing your attractiveness to the pests. For those of you that enjoy a night on the town once you are heavily under the influence of a few beers you are also more inclined to produce more carbon dioxide, yet another negative to consuming too much alcohol.
2 Lactic Acid Production – This is not a particularly pleasant one to describe or read but apparently lactic acid which leaves our bodies via sweat is very attractive to a mosquito. The older the sweat the more enticing it becomes to the mosquito, so the more frequently you wash and perhaps a shower last thing at night and then keeping the temperature lower in your room could all help, as this will make you sweat less.
3 Bacteria – We don’t like to even consider it but there are lots of bacteria living on our skin. The type of bacteria can also have an effect on your attractiveness to the mosquito. Bateria such as Staphylococcus and Variovorax are extremely attractive to mosquitos, but not all bacteria have this effect and Delftia and Pseudomonas actually repel them. I am not convinced that is a good reason to have specific bacteria on your skin though.
4 Blood Type – Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do about this one but studies have shown that the different types of blood group can make a difference, and the league table goes like this O, then B then A. So if you have blood group O you are more likely to be bitten that blood group A.
Whilst there are a lot of factors you cannot change at least having some knowledge can give you a fighting chance to lower the odds. Watch the video below to fully get a better understanding, and we hope this information has proved helpful.