If you’ve ever been camping and felt like the mosquitoes made a beeline for you while leaving your neighbor unbothered, you’re not alone. Scientists have long known that mosquito attraction varies from person to person, but exactly why has remained a puzzle.
Factors such as body chemistry, geography, and even daily habits all seem to play a role. Now, new research adds one more clue — beer drinkers may be more likely to end up on the menu. A direct association between beer and mosquito bites might change your beverage choice.
Researchers from Radboud University Nijmegen put this idea to the test during the 2023 Lowland music festival in the Netherlands. For three days, they turned shipping containers into a pop-up laboratory and filled them with thousands of Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes, a species known as a major malaria carrier in other parts of the world.
Beer and mosquito bites test – the results
The team recruited 465 festival-goers for the experiment. Each participant filled out a survey about hygiene and event behavior, took a breath test, and then faced a live mosquito challenge. With their arms resting against the side of a transparent cage, participants let the insects decide: human scent or a nearby sugar feeder. Skin swabs were also collected to analyze the microbiome — the community of bacteria living on our skin.
The results were telling. “Mosquitoes showed a clear fondness for those who drank beer over those who abstained from the liquid gold,” the researchers reported. Those who had consumed beer within the past 12 hours were 35% more attractive to mosquitoes than those who hadn’t.
Take a shower while you’re at it
But beer wasn’t the only factor. “Attraction was also contagious: Participants that successfully lured a fellow human into their tent the previous night also proved more enticing to mosquitoes,” the researchers noted.
Hygiene mattered too: skipping a shower increased mosquito attraction, while those who had recently showered were far less appealing. Sunscreen appeared to reduce bites temporarily, though the effect faded as time passed since the last shower. In other words, sunscreen might mask natural odors briefly or contain compounds that incidentally deter mosquitoes, but hygiene remained the key factor.
Beer is bad – but wine is fine
Interestingly, some long-held assumptions didn’t hold up. Wine drinkers showed no extra attraction, blood type made no difference, and perfume didn’t help or hurt. Cannabis use showed a small effect at first but faded when other variables were factored in.
So why might beer matter? According to mosquito expert Nigel Beebe of the University of Queensland, alcohol may amplify the cues mosquitoes already use to find us. “I think when you drink alcohol, you might generate a stronger heat signature … or a stronger olfactory (sense of smell) signature in your CO2 plume … which makes you an easier target for mosquito bites,” he said.
Mosquitoes rely on several signals to home in: the carbon dioxide we exhale, our body heat, and skin odors from our microbiome. Once they land, Beebe explained, they “touch you a few times to determine your skin’s oil breakdown products … before biting.”
The Radboud team summed up their findings plainly: “The general picture that emerges from our study suggests that a sober lifestyle – abstaining from drugs and alcohol, sleeping alone and applying sunscreen regularly – lowers one’s chances of getting bitten by mosquitoes.”
For RVers and campers, this means one more tool in the battle against bugs. Along with packing repellent, simply sticking to good hygiene and reapplying sunscreen might help keep bites at bay. And if you enjoy a cold beer by the fire, you might just be sharing more than your camp chair with the mosquitoes.
Sources include New Atlas
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I will take that one with a grain of salt as my partner drinks and never gets bit while I do not drink and they will eat me alive.
Ahh! another study to study. My take: I will stay away from music festivals and not sleep in tents and stick with Cutty Sark.
In a related study, beer drinkers spend more time at the lake.
Yep, I’ve been known to study by the lake a couple of times myself.
That’s just what I was thinking Kelly as I read this article. I gave up on “The Pinch” scotch many years ago and switched to beer. The mosquito’s didn’t care one way or another – the attack is on as usual with or without whatever…. This study needs to studied……… ! Keep your screens on and enjoy the view from the lounge window!
“The general picture that emerges from our study suggests that a sober lifestyle – abstaining from drugs and alcohol, sleeping alone and applying sunscreen regularly – lowers one’s chances of getting bitten by mosquitoes.” Or, saturate yourself in Deep Woods off and go forth and conquer?
Thank you for sharing the results of this interesting study, Russ and Tina! Have a great weekend and safe travels!
do they get a contact “buzz”