How and why some people are seemingly more likely than others to attract potentially deadly mosquito bites has long been a puzzle.
But Dutch researchers have found some answers in tests that show the notorious carriers of malaria and dengue sniffing out people who have been drinking and have just had sex
In what they called a "mosquito magnet trial," a team of scientists and doctors from Radboud University in the Netherlands spent three days testing attendees at Lowlands, an annual music festival held at Biddinghuizen around 60 kilometres east of Amsterdam.
Of the 465 festival-goers who were brave enough to volunteer their arms to be bitten, there was "a clear fondness for those who drank beer" shown by the mosquitoes.
Participants who said they had sex the previous night also proved "enticing" for the mosquitoes, the researchers said.
But people who had put on sunscreen or skipped their morning shower were less attractive, the tests showed.
The mosquitoes were offered the choice of a sugar feeder or a festival-goer's arm, the team said, explaining how they conducted the tests, with the outcomes cross-referenced with forearm skin swabs and participants' answers to questions about their hygiene, diet and "festival-related behaviour."
"The reasons why some people attract more mosquito bites than others remain largely mysterious," the team said, discussing why they carried out the tests.
And while the carbon dioxide people exhale is "considered the initial cue for mosquito activation," the team said, what follows is a "complex set of olfactory, visual, thermal and physical cues that guide a mosquito to a human host." – dpa
