The shower gel can decide whether people are bitten by mosquitoes or not (symbolic image). © IMAGO/imageBROKER/Aleksei Isachenko
How often someone is bitten by mosquitoes depends not only on a person's individual odor profile, but also on the shower gel.
Munich – A group of friends sits around a campfire, after some time some already have numerous stitches, while others were spared. Scientists from the USA have now set out to find the background. A scientific study by researchers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in the US gives an indication that the shower gel may play a role in this.
Certain shower gels increase the attractiveness for mosquitoes
"We were able to show that soaps change the host selection of mosquitoes, with some soaps increasing the attractiveness of the host and some soaps decreasing it," the study authors said of their findings.
To find their "prey," mosquitoes look for certain volatile organic compounds called VOCs, which form an "olfactory odor imprint." Plants as well as animals and humans emit these substances, but their chemical composition differs in each case. Most people regularly use personal care products such as soaps, shower gels, and perfumes, thereby altering their odor signature. This is because many of the synthetic fragrances it contains are inspired by flower extracts.
The analytical methods have identified the main chemicals responsible for these changes, according to the study. With the help of these chemical substances, both an effective mosquito repellent and a bait for the animals could be produced, the scientists concluded. Mosquitoes are considered the most dangerous animals in the world because they can transmit pathogens such as malaria, dengue fever or the Zika virus.
About the study
The study "Soap application alters mosquito-host interactions" by authors Morgen VanderGiessen, Anaïs K. Tallon, Bryn Damico, Chloé Lahondère and Clément Vinauger at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University was published in the journal iScience on May 10, 2023.
Mosquito attractant or protection? The researchers examined these shower gels
The researchers examined both unwashed and washed odor samples from four subjects at different time points. According to the study, aldehydes, ketones and esters dominated the odor profile of the unwashed samples, and the proportion of terpenes increased after the use of soap. These messenger substances, known as semiochemicals, inform the mosquito about the attractiveness of the host, the location of a plant or possible egg-laying sites, among other things. However, certain terpenes can also have a repellent effect. "The composition and concentration of terpenes is therefore probably an important factor" in how attractive certain people are to the mosquitoes, the researchers concluded.
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For their study, the scientists selected soaps from the brands Dial, Dove, Native and Simple Truth. The reason given by the scientists was that the market share of these products in the USA is 53 percent. Simple Truth and Native, the two soaps that were advertised as more "natural," actually tended to be less "chemistry-heavy" than Dial and Dove's products, according to the researchers. The more natural products, for example, had a lower abundance of saturated and unsaturated hydrocarbons such as alkanes and alkenes. However, according to the study, the most important factor in the question of how attractive a person is to mosquitoes is the interaction of soap and the individual odor profile of the respective person. "Of the four soaps tested, Dove and Simple Truth significantly increased the attractiveness of some, but not all, subjects, suggesting an interactive effect between the host's odor profile and soap chemistry," the authors said.
As proof of this, the scientists also used the well-known mosquito repellent limonene from the group of terpenes, which showed no repellent effect on the mosquitoes in three out of four soaps tested. A person's individual olfactory profile is also influenced by factors such as genetic differences, gender, age, food intake, exercise, pregnancy and health status. Further studies on the topic are still pending.