Now that he is coming summer The season begins with those beings from hell who put the soundtrack to our nights with their disturbing hum and adorn our skin with their bites.
Exactly i’m talking about the mosquitos; Although when it comes to bites, not everyone suffers the same fate, since it seems that they are quite exquisite when choosing who they bite and who they don’t.
Although often the ones we used to be target of your bites We tend to argue that our blood is sweeter than that of the rest, the truth is that there are many other characteristics that make us a caramel for these insects and in today’s article I will tell you some of them.
Our blood group, one of the main attractions of mosquito bites
As you know, although the consequences are a real nuisance that has little to do, the main objective of mosquitoes when they bite us is suck our blood.
And in the same way that humans are more of Pepsi than Coca Cola or vice versa, they also have their preferences, which tend to be directed towards people from blood group 0. This became apparent after a 2004 study looking at which people mosquitoes tended to roost in a controlled environment. Thus, they could verify that they were going to the blood of the group 0 twice as often as TO, while the B was located between the two.
Furthermore, these scientists also observed that some people secrete through the skin a chemical signal indicating what is your blood group And that it is precisely to these that these annoying insects tend to approach.
Carbon dioxide, the gas that gives us away
Mosquitoes have been found to detect the presence of a blood-laden individual due to the emission of carbon dioxide resulting from the breathing. This is possible thanks to an organ, called maxillary palp, allowing them smell the co2 at a distance of up to 50 meters.
Therefore, it is not surprising that older people, who exhale a greater amount of this gas during their breathing, are one of their main targets, while the children they go much more unnoticed.
Exercising gives us many advantages and some drawback
It is well known that practicing exercise brings a large number of benefits to our health, but it also gives us wrapped in a bow to the sucking tubes of the mosquitoes.
This is because these insects are often attracted to the hot released by the body in these situations and also by some of the most common substances in the sweat, how lactic acid, rich acid or ammonia.
You are probably wondering why I focus on sports if it is not necessary to run a marathon to sweat an August night, but the truth is that exercise causes some of those components, such as lactic acid, accumulate in greater quantity.
However, the genetic It should also be taken into account at this point, since not all people are predisposed to produce the same amount of all these substances in our sweat.
The influence of skin bacteria
According to another study, carried out in 2011, the presence of certain types of bacteria on the skin makes us more attractive to mosquitoes. In addition, for precisely this reason they usually bite us on very specific areas, how ankles or soles of the feetIt is there where the largest colonies of bacteria are concentrated.
The super power of pregnant women to attract mosquitoes
If it was not enough of a hassle for a pregnant woman to have to carry a huge belly during the hot summer nights, the poor also have to endure the insistent mosquito bites.
This is because they generally exhale a 21% more carbon dioxide and also because your body gives off more heat.
The influence of our clothing
Mosquitoes not only rely on the smell of all the substances that I have mentioned to detect their victims, but also use the sense of vision, being able to more easily detect certain colors such as black, blue or dark red.What is red wearing this summer? All of you!
Beer, the mosquito’s favorite drink
A curious study from 2002 showed how the consumption of a bottle of beer makes us much more attractive to mosquitoes. The causes are not at all clear, although it is intuited that it could be due to a increased body temperature or a major secretion of ethanol in sweat.
The solution could then be to leave the beer aside, although in the same way that mosquitoes are a symbol of summer, the summer season without drops would not be the same, you can not deny me.
Therefore, it seems that becoming a target for these pesky little animals goes far beyond having sweet blood. What about you? Do mosquitoes bite you?