Comment by remarkEon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by remarkEon | Hacker News Reader

> Chemical analysis revealed that highly attractive people produce significantly more carboxylic acids in their skin emanations. Mutant mosquitoes lacking the chemosensory co-receptors Ir8a, Ir25a, or Ir76b were severely impaired in attraction to human scent, but retained the ability to differentiate highly and weakly attractive people. The link between elevated carboxylic acids in “mosquito-magnet” human skin odor and phenotypes of genetic mutations in carboxylic acid receptors suggests that such compounds contribute to differential mosquito attraction.

I wonder if diet has any impact on this. Anecdotally one of my childhood friends in boy scouts was a vegetarian and my goodness was he a mosquito magnet. I’ve always wondered if there was some relationship with what protein you eat and how attractive you are to these insects.

Edit: keep the anecdotes coming. I mean no judgement on any diet. I really just want to understand what makes these horrible insects bite people because, while I was born in Iowa, I spent most of my young adult life in Minnesota and wew that state has a lot of mosquitoes.

Personal anecdote:

I am a massive mosquito magnet, and I was initially a proper t-rex eating meat every day for 25 years but in the last ten years I’ve been 99% Pescatarian (mostly just veggie but sometimes fish or seafood) and I’m still the same massive mosquito magnet.

My wife was her whole life Vegetarian and she is the opposite of me, not a mosquito magnet.

Also personal anecdote; my wife and myself are longtime vegetarians and we never get stung. We generally don’t notice that there is anything bitey around us until magnets asking us if we can go inside because they are getting eaten alive (we have been in Florida for instance where a friend got 10+ bites in a very short time while we were sitting there outside long before him and noticed nothing until he ran inside; this friend is a real magnet as anti moz spray doesn’t help at all for him). It’s not only mosquitos though; things like flees, gnats, midges etc are also not interested in us; we always have to hear from others if there is something that bites.

But no idea if it’s diet related as I cannot remember how it was before I switched diet; too long ago.

I wonder if this is also applicable to bees. When I was a kid, we got caught up in a swarm (there were five of us hiking in the woods). I was walking through the swarm as though I wasn’t even there. I think I had maybe a handful on me the entire hour, while my friends were literally covered in them, even under their clothes and underwear. I never get bitten by insects, ever. I can count on one hand how many mosquitoes have bitten me in the last decade.

I eat tons of meat and my wife eats mostly vegetables. Mosquitoes never bite me and she gets eaten alive.

>My wife was her whole life Vegetarian and she is the opposite of me, not a mosquito magnet.

A friend of mine was in the same situation - he was a magnet, his wife not. His explanation was - "She is so toxic, that they die if they bite her". Brave guy.

This has held true for me as well. I consider myself a delicious steak to my female companions disinteresting salad as far as mosquito's are concerned.

This has also given me an understanding as to why if you ever see any product reviews for DEET based mosquito repellent you'll inevitably see one or more people advocating some hippie tincture that's apparently better but has no terrible chemicals in it.

I always think there was probably a human mosquito meat shield nearby who was taking the hits for them.

My wife and I eat nearly identical diets. When we are outside together she can be bit over a dozen times and I won’t be bit once. Furthermore, she has been highly attractive to mosquitoes her entire life spanning radically different diets.

Anecdotal: Both my wife and I have varied our diets in significant ways for long periods. I've never attracted mosquitoes, she always does.

likewise, isn't carboxylic acid in all the carbonated sodas we drink?

I think carbolic acid found in soft drinks and carboxylic acids (there are many of them) are found in all sorts of things (coconuts, goat fat, fragrances, pheromones, etc) but not carbonated drinks, according to Wikipedia.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboxylic_acid

Not sure why you got downvoted for asking a good faith question, but you’re thinking of carbonic acid, which is responsible for the fizz when the pressure lowers as you pop the top and it creates carbon dioxide.

I wonder whether puberty has an effect? I was bitten to death as a kid, as an adult it's far, far less frequent (to the point where a single bite is 'a thing').

But that might also be because kid me played outside in the park in the evening/went camping etc., and if adult me is out in the evening it's usually sitting outside a bar.

Another article I read said they did multiple samples from people and the attractive people were always attractive. They said it rules out soaps and recently eaten food, but I guess "extreme" diets of vegan or carnivore wouldn't change much over a few months.

The study did try to rule diet out though.

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