Comments on: Beer makes humans more attractive to malarial mosquitoes

By: James

James — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 22:01:54 +0000

Beer may or may not contain Thiamine but alcohol blocks it’s absorption by the body. As a water soluble vitamin it goes straight through you. As a recovering alcoholic I found this out the hard way. I drank lots, ( lots! ) of beer, of the traditional English variety known as real ale, and did get Wernike’s Encephalopathy. It was a close call. By pure luck it was diagnosed in time, and thanks to heroic transfusions of thiamine I survived.
It’s probably just a coincidence but these days I don’t seem to get bitten…

By: Rick H

Rick H — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 19:44:31 +0000

The body temperature issue is not actually a contradiction. For the short time period used, the alcohol increases blood flow to the skin, raising the skin temperature. The mosquito senses that heated skin. In the meantime the human body is losing heat to the air, gradually reducing core temperature. The mosquito senses the heat of the outer shell of the body, not the core temperature. It would have been confusing if skin temperature were lower too.

By: harold

harold — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:27:29 +0000

John -
Hard liquor depletes vitamin B1 (except in Australia, where they fortify to prevent Wernicke-Korsikoff syndrome).
Beer, at least high quality all-malt beer, is loaded with thiamine.

By: harold

harold — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:52:13 +0000

The only control is water, rendering the study silly. To say that beer has a specific effect, you need to test it against other foods, taken in similar caloric amounts, at a minimum.
Perhaps a non-specific increase in blood sugar is responsible, for example. It’s highly plausible that mosquitoes would be attracted to blood with a higher glucose content. But then almost any snack or meal would have the same effect.

By: John

John — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:30:51 +0000

Vitamin B1 (Thiamin) deters mesquitoes as most backpackers know. Beer depletes this vitamin in the system. Mystery solved.

By: Happy

Happy — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:07:36 +0000

But in southern Australia there are no malaria- carrying mosquitoes – yet.

between Dengue Fever, Ross River Virus, and the tradition of going “fishing” with half a litre of bait and four hundred litres of beer, a local follow up on this is probably going happen any second now…

By: Happy

Happy — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:04:25 +0000

[blockquote]
But in southern Australia there are no malaria- carrying mosquitoes – yet.
[/blockquote]
between Dengue Fever, Ross River Virus, and the tradition of going “fishing” with half a litre of bait and four hundred litres of beer, a local follow up on this is probably going happen any second now…

By: Briana

Briana — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 04:13:23 +0000

@Ed Yes, I’ve learned to appreciate the wonders of my colon and all it contains thanks to your features.
NSF is where I read that article, in case anyone else is interested: http://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=116286&org=NSF
Apparently nonanal gives off a fruity odor, as opposed to nutty.

By: not_hippy

not_hippy — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:50:08 +0000

Maybe that explains why mosquitos tend to ignore me, being Australian and a homebrewer… but now I’m confused. Mosquitos are attracted to beer drinkers, or at least Burkinabe males aged between 23 and 40 who drink dolo prepared from the fermented dough of sorghum. But mosquitos are repelled by beer drinkers, or at least according to folklore, Australians who drink homebrew. To be safe, I’ll continue to avoid drinking dolo and being Burkinise and stick with homebrew…

By: Ed Yong

Ed Yong — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:16:27 +0000

Did I read the nonanal findings from Not Exactly Rocket Science?

Probably not – I try to feature only the most anal of discoveries.
ChrisM – Thanks for that.
A.Fleming – The idea that Aussies might drink home-brewed beer for 6 weeks straight does not surprise me in the slightest