Why am I so attractive...

Factual Questions
1

to mesquitoes and other biting insects, while my friend is not attractive at all? I just got back from a trip and in two days I have over a hundred little bites.

so what is the deal?

2

Generally there are two culprits to mosquito swarmings: cologne and diet. A high-fat diet makes you smell more like food than anything, and most sweet colognes will make a mosquito assume that your blood is nutrient-rich and a tasty snack… there’s also a natural factor, genetically, which gives some people a pheremonal bug repellent… that’s my shot at it…

3

I don’t wear perfumes and I eat a fairly low fat diet and I am a bug magnet. My hubby, who eats lots of fat, doesn’t attract them at all.

4

Latest stuff I’ve been hearing is that your CO[sub]2[/sub] output is what draws’em in. Some people produce more than others. Do you fidget a lot?

5

I’ve heard it claimed that some people’s skin just reacts more strongly to mosquito bites. People who “do not attract mosquitos” are simply insensitive to mosquito bites. Is there any validity to this theory?

6

well we were rock climbing with headlamps in the middle of the night now that I think about it the lamps probably attracted them as well as the increased co2…bummer…that is the price you pay I guess.

btw I dig this forum :smiley:

thanks

7

This makes sense to me. My SO and I basically eat the same foods (well, he won’t eat tomatoes :rolleyes: ) and share soaps and shampoos. I get chowed on, and he will hardly be bothered. When I complain about all the bites, he tells me it is because I scratch them, irritating the area more.

8

This seems the most sensible conclusion to me. When I was travelling in Malawi with a friend, he was eaten alive every night even though he used insect repellant. I was not aware of having been bitten at all but ended up getting malaria. I had been in Africa for some months by that stage and had convinced myself that mosquitoes just didn’t bite me and had stopped taking anti-malaria pills. My friend was not so fearless and was, consequently, parasite free.

9

I’ve had this same theory for a while, but I’ve never had it confirmed. I’ve never had a moquito bite in the United States (at least not one that I noticed). But when I go to a foreign country, I get huge nasty welts, as do my felllow countrypeople, but the locals seem unbothered. After a few months the bites seem to go away. It seems that the substance that causes irritation differs from place to place and that people can gain an immunity to it.