We all want to eat the kinds of foods that make us feel better, live longer, but there's

so much conflicting information out there, so many nutrition opinions.

Welcome to the Nutrition Facts podcast, I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger, it's my job

to give you the information you need to make the healthiest choices possible.

Today we're going to hear about dietary remedies that encourage mosquitoes and ticks to find

a meal elsewhere.

For some people just more attractive to mosquitoes than others, apparently so, as identical twins

are most likely to be similarly tasty compared to fraternal twins who only share 50% of

their DNA, demonstrating an underlying genetic component that can be sniffed out by mosquitoes,

although it's not clear it's because some people smell better or other people just smell

worse.

We know pregnant women are twice attractive to malaria mosquitoes and also that mosquitoes

are attracted to sweat.

Human sweat contains components that are attractive to anthropophilic, meaning human

loving mosquitoes.

The unique composition of human sweat appears to explain its tantalizing effect, though

sweat from some body parts are evidently more tantalizing than others, skin emanations

collected from armpits were less attractive compared to hands or feet, they think the

difference may be caused by deodorant residues since in a subsequent experiment, volunteers

were asked to avoid using skin care products for five days, and after that no differences

were detected.

The creepiest bit of research I found was this, the parasites that cause the mosquito-borne

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