Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Beer Science

Beer Drinkers Are Mosquito Magnets, According To a Festival Study (phys.org) 36

Posted by BeauHD from the would-you-look-at-that dept.
alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: Some people are simply mosquito magnets while others emerge relatively unscathed. But why is this so? One explanation, according to scientists from the Netherlands, is beer. To find out why the blood-sucking critters prefer some people over others, a research team led by Felix Hol of Radboud University Nijmegen took thousands of female Anopheles mosquitoes to Lowlands, an annual music festival held in the Netherlands.

Researchers set up a pop-up lab in connected shipping containers in 2023, and around 500 volunteers took part. First, they filled out a questionnaire about their hygiene, diet and behavior at the festival. Then, to see how attractive they are to mosquitoes, they placed their arm into a custom-designed cage filled with the pesky insects. The cage had tiny holes so the mosquitoes could smell the person's arm but couldn't bite them. A video camera recorded how many insects landed on a volunteer's arm compared to a sugar feeder on the other side of the cage. By comparing the video footage and questionnaire answers, researchers saw some clear results emerge.

Participants who drank beer were 1.35 times more attractive to mosquitoes than those who didn't. The tiny vampires were also more likely to target people who had slept with someone the previous night. The study also revealed that recent showering and sunscreen make people less attractive to the buzzing menace. "We found that mosquitoes are drawn to those who avoid sunscreen, drink beer, and share their bed," the researchers wrote in a paper uploaded to the bioRxiv preprint server. "They simply have a taste for the hedonists among us."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Beer Drinkers Are Mosquito Magnets, According To a Festival Study More

Beer Drinkers Are Mosquito Magnets, According To a Festival Study

Comments Filter:
  • As an ex beer drinker, can confirm mosquitos bite me way less than they used to. Still chunky and sweaty and they are, unfortunately, still into that. Really tho, this is not a new discovery. I can recall reading about this back when I used to drink.

  • Are beer drinkers secreting some compound that attracts mosquitoes?

    • Yes. Alcohol. It's on their breath, and insects are attracted to it in general. Googling around, that includes mosquitos but I've heard of people using it to attract wasps and kill them even though it's probably counter-productive since you're attracting the very thing you don't want and the outdoors have a very large supply that your bug zapper or dish of beer is not going to exhaust.

      • Is that it though? Do wine or liquor drinkers also attract more mosquitoes?

        • OK, so much for that theory because I went ahead and searched the full text for wine and got this:

          Mosquitoes showed a clear preference for the well-hydrated, on hops and grapes, that is. Arm landings were significantly higher in beer drinkers compared to those who had nobly abstained for at least 12 hours (FC 1.44, 95% CI 1.20-1.74, PFDR < 0.001, Figure 3C). Mosquitoes seemed to have a taste for wine drinkers too (FC 1.39, 95% CI 1.02-1.88, P = 0.035), but this effect sobered up after correcting for mult

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by evanh ( 627108 )

            Probably blood sugar levels. People are known to eat more when doped up. Beer is very high in sugar.

      • Yes. Alcohol.

        Ah, but then they would also target drinkers of wine or spirits - both of which have higher alcohol contents - and not just beer. I guess they are just like many of us, they just want to relax with a pint and this is the nearest they can get.

        • They probably do go after wine or spirits drinkers too, but the "study" (such as it is) was conducted at a music festival, which tends to have a lot of beer but relatively little wine or spirits.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by skam240 ( 789197 )

        Googling around, that includes mosquitos but I've heard of people using it to attract wasps and kill them even though it's probably counter-productive since you're attracting the very thing you don't want and the outdoors have a very large supply that your bug zapper or dish of beer is not going to exhaust.

        You put the bait on the opposite side of the yard that you want to hang out in, not right next to you :)

    • Itâ(TM)s called âoecarbon dioxideâ. Beer is carbonized. Shake open a bottle or can to see it in actionâ¦

  • Participants who drank beer were 1.35 times more attractive to mosquitoes than those who didn't. The tiny vampires were also more likely to target people who had slept with someone the previous night.

    Of course, there's also a possible correlation between drinking and getting laid...

  • More generally, mosquitoes seem to detect blood sugar levels as the apparently want energy to support their pregnancies, this would make sense.

    They seem to be repelled by people carrying a 3500V mosquito-tennis racket though - which is an annoyance.

  • Not me (Score:3)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2025 @01:26AM (#65650128)

    >"Beer Drinkers Are Mosquito Magnets"

    Well, that doesn't explain MY problem with them. I have never consumed alcohol, and mosquitos seem to target me more than anyone in any group, my whole life. I absolutely hate them and wouldn't shed a tear if the entire species disappeared forever. I know there are other factors that might put me in that 20% of people "irresistible to mosquitos"

    https://www.verywellhealth.com... [verywellhealth.com]

  • Mosquitoes are attracted by the CO2 (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Laxator2 ( 973549 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2025 @05:14AM (#65650276)

    It is known that mosquitoes locate humans by tracking the carbon dioxide that humans release:

    https://www.sciencenewstoday.o... [sciencenewstoday.org]

    Beer bubbles are nothing but carbon dioxide bubbles, so carrying around an open can/bottle of beer is nothing more than carrying around a homing beacon for mosquitoes.

    • so carrying around an open can/bottle

      The test did not involve open cans/bottles of beer at all. No alcohol was involved in the test at all.

      I'm great you think the answer is obvious, but your conclusion (while it may be right in other unrelated ways) has nothing to do with the results shown in the study.

  • As the only beer drinker in our family, and the one that mosquitos tend to avoid, I can attest that this is not true.

  • Well that's what they (the voices in my head) keep telling me.

    These were female mosquitos obviously

  • Just beer? (Score:3)

    by ChunderDownunder ( 709234 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2025 @08:19AM (#65650442)

    Very poor journalism and/or research cited.

    Even the summary for the academic paper doesn't mention a control group with wine or spirits.

    I am happy to fly to the Netherlands to participate in further experiments testing a difference in getting bitten from drinking other types of alcohol.

  • If there is something humans can eat or drink that turns our skin oils and sweat into bug repellant

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      Fairly high does of Vitamin B does it for some people, though not everyone. Don't take too much niacin though, unless you want to experience a very unpleasant 'niacin flush'.

  • Participants who drank beer were 1.35 times more attractive to mosquitoes than those who didn't.

    In my experience, alcohol usually makes some creatures more attracted BY the drinker, not TO the drinker...

  • "Hey, come over here! This guy will give you a real buzz!"

Slashdot Top Deals

If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.

Close