2023-06-13 08:07:12
Imagine being able to say goodbye to mosquito bites. This is the surprising promise kept by a product blocking our body odors.
Every summer, they are a real scourge. They can concern children as well as adults, whether they are in the North or the South of France. Mosquito bites seem inevitable, especially near water points.
To keep insects away, there are many tricks. It is possible to make diffusions of essential oils, to plant cloves in a lime or to install certain plants in your garden. However, pests always manage to sting despite these grandma tricks. But horrible summer itch may soon be a thing of the past.
A team of researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has developed a product that could revolutionize our holidays. Indeed, they have created a treatment forming a protective barrier that prevents mosquitoes from attacking us. The full study about it was shared in the journal PNAS Nexus.
A natural product acting as a barrier against mosquito bites
To fully understand how this product works, it is important to know why mosquitoes bite us. Like many animals, these insects are attracted by several factors such as the heat we produce but especially our body odors. Whether it’s perspiration or the shower gel we use, our scent can induce mosquitoes to attack.
The idea that the researchers had was therefore to block the odors emitted by our body to make us undetectable by pests. And to develop this repellent, the researchers were inspired by nature.
First, they took cellulose. Naturally present on the walls of plants, it is this element which forms a protective barrier on the skin that retains our odors. Then they combined this compound with indole, an element found in the wild in certain flowers. This last fact acts as a repellent and keeps insects away. The action of these two compounds currently allows an efficiency of 99% in the laboratory.
A discovery that could drastically reduce the spread of certain diseases
Currently, there is no planned release date for this mosquito repellent. Even if the researchers obtained an effectiveness rate of 99% on their first tests, they must now test the product on humans. If it proves to be as effective following clinical trials, the product could mark a turning point in the elimination of serious diseases.
In France, apart from the tiger mosquito, most summer pests are harmless. But in countries in the southern hemisphere, the Zika virus or malaria are always transmitted by mosquito bites. The treatment could help exposed populations to drastically reduce the risk of diseases and help eliminate them without risk to health.
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