Or you wake up from a night of camping to find your ankles and wrists aflame with bites, while your tentmates are unscathed. An estimated 20 percent of people , it turns out, are especially delicious for mosquitoes, and get bit more often on a consistent basis. Here are some of the factors that could play a role:. Not surprisingly—since, after all, mosquitoes bite us to harvest proteins from our blood—research shows that they may find certain blood types more appetizing than others.
One study found that in a controlled setting, mosquitoes landed on people with Type O blood nearly twice as often as those with Type A. People with Type B blood fell somewhere in the middle of this itchy spectrum. Additionally, based on other genes, about 85 percent of people secrete a chemical signal through their skin that indicates which blood type they have, while 15 percent do not, and mosquitoes are also more attracted to secretors than nonsecretors regardless of which type they are.
One of the key ways mosquitoes locate their targets is by smelling the carbon dioxide emitted in their breath—they use an organ called a maxillary palp to do this, and can detect carbon dioxide from as far as feet away.
Jonathan Day, a medical entomologist and mosquito expert at the University of Florida. And that time your grandmother told you your skin was just sweeter? Unfortunately, your genes dictate your blood type and the chemical makeup of your birthday suit. Genetics also determine several other factors that could make you an object of blood-sucking affection for your local mosquito population, Day says.
Maybe the most important: Your metabolic rate, or the amount of carbon dioxide CO2 your body releases as it burns energy. Mosquitoes use CO2 as their primary means of identifying bite targets, Day says. Also, drinking alcohol or physically exerting yourself raises your metabolic rate—and also your appeal to winged biters, he adds. While CO2 detection is the primary technique mosquitoes and other blood-sucking bugs use to spot hosts, they also rely on secondary cues to differentiate you from cars, decaying trees, and other CO2-producing objects.
And you can control some of those secondary cues, Day says. A combination of these factors likely makes certain people more attractive to mosquitoes. Research on this topic is ongoing. When mosquitos feed on your blood, your skin reacts with round, itchy red bumps. Learn how to stop the bites from itching. Most commercial bug repellents can cause health and environmental problems.
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