people mosquito magnets – Scientists are now making progress in understanding the complex chemical cocktail that makes certain people more attractive to these disease-carrying blood donors. Mosquitoes may prefer one human over another due to a range of sensory cues – primarily the smell and heat given off by our bodies, and the carbon dioxide we exhale.

Female mosquitoes – the only ones that bite – detect these signals with finely-tuned receptors, then choose their targets accordingly. “The idea that mosquitoes prefer a particular type of blood has no scientific basis,” said Frédéric Simard of France’s Institute of Research for Development. However, smell matters a lot: “The soup of molecules produced by our microbiota is more attractive to mosquitoes”.

Research has shown that humans release 300 to 1,000 different odor compounds, but scientists are just beginning to understand which substances attract mosquitoes. In a recent study, researchers released Aedes aegypti mosquitoes on 42 women in a lab. Mosquitoes detected 27 odorous compounds.

The women who were most prone to mosquito bites had a compound called sebum formed from the breakdown of oil in their skin. Drinking beer has also been linked to attracting mosquitoes according to several studies because it increases body temperature, increases the amount of CO2 emitted and alters skin odor. For a 2023 study in the Netherlands, 465 volunteers placed their arms in cages filled with female Anopheles mosquitoes, which can spread malaria.

Volunteers who had drank beer in the previous 24 hours were several times more attractive to mosquitoes.