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03.20.2023 at 12:36 p.m.
Modified on 03.20.2023 at 12:36 p.m.
Every year, you cannot escape them: mosquitoes want your skin! What if American researchers had finally found a way to stop suffering from their bites?
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With the thaw that settles in our country, mosquitoes and their pesky bites are also preparing their return. Faced with this fearsome animal that transmits the most diseases on the planet, we are not all equal. Some attract them like flies, while others always pass through… But then, how to explain that a mosquito is more attracted to a human than another? A team of American researchers believe they have found the explanation, which is hidden in the antennae of these unloved insects, indicates a study published in Cell Reports.
Acids make your skin attractive to mosquitoes
If there are no “mosquito skins”, culicidae do not choose their prey completely at random. Faculty researchers Johns Hopkins Medicine, in Maryland, claim to have mapped receptors on the nerve cells of insects that would be able to detect the most “attractive” smells on our skin, and this by using all their senses. If science had already demonstrated that olfactory receptors allow mosquitoes to distinguish animals from human beings, Christopher Potter, professor of neurosciences, and his team looked at so-called ionotropic receptors, capable of reacting to acids and amines present on human skin. “It’s thought that different levels of particular acids on human skin could be a reason why some people are more attractive to mosquitoes than others.“, explains Potter in a press release.
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Towards the development of better repellents
This discovery cited in the magazine Slate, which shows that mosquito antennae are much more complex than they appear, should make it possible to develop better mosquito repellents in the future and better protect populations against the many diseases brought by these insects. Malaria, dengue or even the West Nile virus – parasitic pathologies transmitted by bites – affect “700 million people and kill 750,000 each year worldwide”, specifies this report.
As part of this vector control, the health authorities in France are multiplying prevention messages, particularly in departments where the tiger mosquito is particularly virulent. According to health insurancethe most effective method to prevent their proliferation is to “remove the accumulations of stagnant water that may harbor larvae (larval breeding sites)”, which amounts to ensuring the proper maintenance of your home and garden.
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