Beer can get you buzzed — and not in the good way.
Dutch scientists have discovered that mosquitoes prefer the blood of people who’ve knocked back a few brews, among other habits.
The team, helmed by Felix Hol of Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands, set out to see “why some people attract more mosquito bites than others,” per a paper uploaded to BioRXiv.
To get to the bottom of the skeeter’s apparent predilection for “red ale,” researchers brought thousands of female mosquitoes to Lowlands, an annual music festival in the Netherlands, Phys.org reported.
The set-up a pop-up lab and recruited 500 revelers from the event, who they asked questions pertaining to diet, hygiene and behavior.
These human guinea pigs then placed their arms in a custom-made box full of the bloodsuckers that had tiny holes so they could smell but not bite — like a bizarro blood bank.
Researchers then used cameras to record how many mosquitos landed on their arm — and for how long — compared to on the sugar feeder on the other side of the cage. The results were then analyzed against the volunteers’ questionnaire answers.
The team found that those who imbibed brews were 1.35 times more attractive to these vampiric critters than those who did not.
And that wasn’t all — these disease vectors were also more likely to target volunteers who slept with someone the previous night, as well as people who wore less sunscreen and didn’t shower as much.
“We found that mosquitoes are drawn to those who avoid sunscreen, drink beer, and share their bed,” the team concluded while discussing these booze clues. “They simply have a taste for the hedonists among us.”
It’s not the alcohol that appeals to the skeeters — their attraction is purely rooted in scent.
“People who have been drinking alcohol also behave differently, of course,” Hol said in an interview for Dutch radio program Vroege Vogels, Forbes reported. “At a festival like Lowlands they might also be dancing more exuberantly, which can also change their body odor.”
In fact, studies have shown that the pesky creatures are so drawn to BO that they can find people from 350 feet away once they get a whiff.
Of course, there are some caveats to the bloody study, namely the lack of a diverse sample size.
The team noted that people who attend music festivals such as Lowlands tend to be younger and healthier.
To more accurately determine mosquitos’ supposed love of hop heads, researchers would have to cast a wider mosquito net and see how they respond to people outside of music events.
In the interim, it might not hurt to dial back the drinking, slather on some sunscreen and shower more regularly.
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