Why sugar may stop mosquito bites. Via InsideScience.
– A spoonful of sugar may help keep the fever medicine away, according to new research that has pinpointed a protein in disease-carrying mosquitoes that can curb their attraction to human blood.
The researchers looked at the behavior of the Asian tiger mosquito , which is originally native to parts of Southeast Asia, but has spread as an invasive species to many other tropical countries around the world. The mosquito is particularly attracted to humans, often living in urban areas, and can transmit a number of nasty diseases like dengue, Chikungunya and yellow fevers, and possibly the Zika virus.
They found that the young females weren’t interested in human blood after indulging in their collective sweet tooth. This effect lasted up to five or six days, said Gabrieli, who was a zoologist at the University of Pavia in Italy while conducting this research. When the researchers subsequently performed another experiment in which they interfered with the RNA and reduced the expression of Vg-2, they noticed that the female mosquitoes would be hungry for human blood despite just eating the sugar.
"The animals are already naturally producing these chemicals. If we actually start synthesizing analogues or the chemicals themselves and somehow deliver it to the mosquito … it could be a way to suppress their biting behavior," he said.
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