Why do some people get bitten more by mosquitoes?

 

Ever wonder why mosquitoes seem to single you out while everyone else is left alone? It's not bad luck. Mosquitoes are drawn to carbon dioxide from your breath, chemicals in your sweat like lactic acid, certain blood types (type O is a favorite), body heat, the bacteria living on your skin, and dark colors that stand out against the background. Stack up a few of these traits and you become what the infographic calls a "walking dinner plate."

Some people are mosquito magnets.

No matter where they go on summer vacation, one thing is certain: they will get bitten by mosquitoes, leaving them with large, itchy bumps that will bother them for weeks.

On the other hand, the other people they are with don’t feel any pain. They don’t get bitten by a single mosquito, and when they do, they often only get a small red mark on their body. My friends have long joked that my blood must be ‘unusually sweet.’

And they are probably right. Our bodies emit a number of biological signals, such as breath and body odor, that determine how likely a person is to be bitten by a mosquito. In some people, these signals are so strong that mosquitoes can’t even get rid of them.

Here are three ways these bloodsuckers can track you down.

Carbon Dioxide Signals to Mosquitoes that You are a Good Candidate for a Bite

Only female mosquitoes bite humans. They are attracted to us to obtain a protein in our blood that is needed for the development of their eggs.

They use sight and smell to identify their target from a distance of about 10 meters (33 feet).

They also include carbon dioxide (CO2) that we exhale.

Mosquitoes receive carbon dioxide cues from our breath, which activates their prey-hunting behavior. Mosquitoes target adult humans more than children because they produce more CO2.

But this also means that mosquitoes are attracted to non-human sources of carbon dioxide, which is why dry ice and bottled carbon dioxide are useful tools for catching mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes don't have favorites—they have data. Your breath, sweat, skin bacteria, and body heat all send signals, and some people simply broadcast louder.

Body Heat Attracts Mosquitoes More

Research shows that mosquitoes are also attracted to heat and humidity, and that carbon dioxide increases this attraction to heat.

That is why mosquitoes are twice as attracted to pregnant women as to non-pregnant women. This is because the body’s metabolic needs and breathing volume increase during pregnancy, which results in the body excreting more heat and carbon dioxide.

Pregnant women generally emit more carbon dioxide and have higher body temperatures. Both of these characteristics attract mosquitoes.

“You have a little furnace inside you; you get hotter,” says Steve Lindsay, an entomologist at Durham University in the UK.

People who exercise can also temporarily be more attractive to mosquitoes, especially during and immediately after exercise, because the body’s metabolic needs increase, which increases carbon dioxide production. This process results in the body becoming hotter and sweating more.

Larger people generally generate more heat and emit more CO2, which can make them more attractive to mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes Recognize Your Body Odor

When mosquitoes get close to a person (less than 10 meters away), they recognize their prey using a variety of cues, including the smell of human skin and breath.

There are more than 3,500 species of mosquitoes worldwide.

Lindsay says that your smell is primarily what determines how much a mosquito will bite you. “Very small and very quickly evaporating chemicals make the difference. Mosquitoes live in a chemical world.”

Lindsay, along with other scientists, has disproved the notion that mosquitoes bite more people with 'sweet blood'. Their research has shown that mosquitoes are attracted to the unique scent of our skin.

The skin microbiome can convert carbohydrates, fatty acids, and peptides on the skin into volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These compounds easily dissolve in air, and mosquitoes can distinguish them.

More than 500 VOCs are found on our skin.

You're not unlucky—you're legible. Mosquitoes navigate by breath, sweat, heat, and skin chemistry, and some people simply give off a clearer signal than others.

Mosquitoes are already attracted to the ammonia and lactic acid on our skin, and the presence of carboxylic acids increases this attraction.

Researchers at Rockefeller University in the US analyzed the skin odor of 64 people who wore nylon sleeves for six hours.

Mosquitoes could detect the scent of human body odor in these nylon sleeves and clearly preferred the scent of individuals with higher levels of carboxylic acids on their skin.

The researchers created an attractiveness score for each individual and found that the highest score was 100 times higher than the lowest. This difference persisted over the years, despite lifestyle changes.

Lindsay says that the degree to which mosquitoes are attracted to you doesn’t change much.

Our skin microbiome may also influence how attracted we are to mosquitoes.

Researchers at Wageningen University in the Netherlands found that people who were more attractive to malaria-carrying mosquitoes had different skin bacteria than those who were less attractive to mosquitoes.

This is likely because skin bacteria play an important role in the production of human body odor, and without bacteria, human sweat would have no odor.

A study of twins found that identical twins were equally attracted to mosquitoes, while twins who were not genetically identical showed differences.

This suggests that the characteristics of the smell that influence someone's likelihood of being bitten may be hereditary.

Mosquito Bites don't Affect Everyone the Same Way.

Different people's bodies can react very differently to mosquito bites.

A study found a strong genetic link between genes related to our immune system and how our bodies react to mosquito bites.

Another interesting finding was that these parts of our genes and genes associated with allergies were shared.

Furthermore, a tendency to have a larger and more severe reaction to mosquito bites (the size of the swelling and itching) may reinforce your perception that you are a mosquito magnet.

“Some people think that mosquitoes bite them more because their bodies react more. Some people may get bitten more but have a negligible reaction to it,” says Professor Heather Ferguson from the University of Glasgow.

And while some of us may be biologically easier targets for mosquitoes, no one is completely immune to them. As Ferguson says, "Even if you're sure you won't get bitten by mosquitoes, you should still protect yourself."

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