0:00

ABC Listen, podcasts,

0:02

radio, news, music

0:05

and more. Norman,

0:07

I want to know if you have a

0:09

mosquito magnet friend, that person that you know

0:11

that if you're with them, you won't get

0:13

bitten. Because I think if you don't have

0:15

that friend, then you are that friend. I

0:19

have more than one friend. One

0:21

for every occasion. I have a friend who

0:23

has children and basically the friend and children

0:25

are the mosquito magnets. It was great having

0:28

dinner outside of her, fantastic. My

0:31

mosquito magnet friend is my sister

0:33

who actually

0:35

caught the OG mosquito-borne disease

0:38

malaria. I probably should have joked

0:40

about it. She was always,

0:42

even as a little kid, she was always covered in mosquito

0:44

bites and other people weren't. So it

0:46

was bad, but maybe not entirely surprising

0:48

when she got malaria. She's fine now.

0:51

I'm glad to hear that. And Mozzie's

0:53

is what that rash is all about.

0:56

Yeah. Why do some people seem to get bitten

0:58

so much more than others? I am health

1:00

reporter Tegan Taylor on Jagger and Turrable Land. And

1:02

I'm physician journalist Dr Norman Swan on Gannigal

1:04

Land. And

1:08

today's question is from Patrick who was writing

1:10

this after he'd gone outside early in the

1:13

morning to let the dogs out. Got bitten

1:15

by mosquitoes, it happens all the time. Patrick

1:17

says, I seem to attract the mosquitoes. I'm

1:20

the person you bring along camping to sacrifice

1:22

for the sake of fellow campers. My

1:25

question is, is this a real thing?

1:27

Are some people more attractive to mosquitoes?

1:29

And if so, why is it so? Thank

1:32

you, Patrick. Great question. Lots of people have

1:35

been wondering that through the years. If

1:37

you want to turn off this, watch that rash very quickly

1:39

and move on to something else. The quick answer is yes,

1:42

but we're going to tell you why it's so. Oh,

1:44

because it's going to get gory. Not necessarily,

1:46

no, but maybe a bit smelly. Oh,

1:49

smelly. OK. I'm interested

1:51

to know why mosquitoes actually need to bite

1:53

us at all, because I'm pretty sure they're

1:56

not. We're not their only food source. Blood

1:59

is a significant. part of your

2:01

food supply Either it's human animals

2:03

or nonhuman animals Have a seat

2:05

on and it's only the female

2:07

mosquitoes. A seat on the urban

2:09

mosquitoes managed to get this stuff

2:11

elsewhere. See the Or As a result,

2:13

always Men women is. Yet so women

2:15

on so much better Sucky about the

2:17

the do for do cause which is

2:19

reproduction of course on the man well

2:21

a guy. Does I came? It's him.

2:24

You really are getting like a school bus say when

2:26

you feeding on human blood isn't lot in there. It's

2:28

not just. Drinking nectar at a plant

2:30

it so or spin on coffee

2:32

assists. The vampires really

2:35

do what they were up to you are

2:37

they giving blood fast recovery proteins? You're getting

2:39

hormone sickening, all sorts of stuff. by my

2:41

do you probably getting a few viruses? well

2:43

aware giving them viruses yeah of income of

2:45

really try to cut back on Bucks on

2:47

sanctions because he has all sorts of things

2:49

from Bucks and Susan. I'm sure what are

2:51

aware of the that's not what this most

2:53

arrested but we're talking about Moses Nice mother's

2:55

mother so. Okay, How did I know?

2:58

That. We've got bloodiness. What is

3:00

giving them the signal that were

3:02

tasty. What is it was so

3:05

fast, easy, and it's was is

3:07

a lot of variation between mosquito

3:09

species. This seems to be a

3:11

commonality about why mosquitoes get attracted

3:14

to human beings and probably tell

3:16

us a bit about why some

3:18

people truly are more skis or

3:20

tractors and some people are less

3:22

so. First of all, it's something

3:25

we all do is that when

3:27

we breathe out, we breathe out

3:29

carbon dioxide and mosquitoes can detect

3:31

the carbon dioxide. Plume that comes

3:33

from your breasts. So unless as

3:36

a barbecue you hold your breath

3:38

hum And since you're going to

3:40

be screaming carbon dioxide so the

3:42

that lesser for six seconds in

3:44

a big tix. A the same i

3:46

think tix time in on the carbon dioxide claim.

3:48

That's how they find you. That's.

3:51

Quite possible I haven't sorted up on

3:53

tix for this particular was that run

3:55

was a lot of things and it's

3:57

golfing his body temperature so mosquitoes. Run

4:00

a terms of maybe twenty eight degrees

4:02

by, they seem to be tuned to

4:05

be attracted to her temperature of thirty

4:07

seven degrees. So body temperatures the other

4:09

thing. And here's the smelly thing. Body

4:13

Odor: A There is

4:15

a species of mosquito

4:17

that loves stinky cheese.

4:20

Limburger. she's an interest in a

4:22

controversial casals. Saudis have not shown

4:25

that but the bugs that way

4:27

for this country off the record.

4:30

Like a bugs that produce the

4:32

stinky cheese or also the same

4:34

bugs that costs fruit. Order. Rosette.

4:37

Have you ever wondered why?

4:40

your ankles. Get. Precisely.

4:42

bitten. As close to my

4:44

gosh? yeah. okay. So what reason

4:46

is that you're not wearing trousers of genes

4:48

or whatever zoc we don't you feats. but

4:51

even when you wearing shorts. It's.

4:53

Your ankles the get bitten because

4:55

the most he's get attracted to food,

4:57

order. So

4:59

if. They've got you've missed. Get a magnet friend.

5:01

You can just tell him I smell like stinky cheese and

5:03

say. Here's the thing, what

5:06

looks as though is the hierarchy of

5:08

attract and some some sources hand seems

5:10

to be greater than socks and seem

5:12

to be groove and seats. But essentially

5:14

when we sweat. As we

5:16

all due to some extent the

5:18

sweat and or poor's produce. the

5:20

foods and bacteria feed on those

5:23

leopards and was bacteria when the

5:25

fetal is that it's produce order.

5:28

And we have different micro

5:30

violence or external microbiome is

5:32

as different as our internal

5:34

microbiome and is likely that

5:37

one of the elements that

5:39

attracts mosquitoes to people's is

5:41

probably the micro biome of

5:43

the bacteria the digest the

5:45

sweat. We should have put

5:47

a warning on the most

5:50

addresses. This isn't it. anywhere near as.

5:52

Crisis least gotten. On. His hips

5:54

have a place I've taught size compared to

5:56

what we're gonna get to at some stage.

5:58

So if your my. microbiome in the

6:00

sweat and the bacteria in the sweat eating

6:03

your sweat is like making you stinky is

6:05

having a shower Gonna do

6:07

the job just wash it all off So

6:09

I haven't seen a randomized control trial of

6:11

sharing and what soap you use there Maybe

6:13

the soap actually might attract them, but

6:16

you know, it is an interesting thought So I

6:18

suppose if you've got kids who are well, it's

6:20

been just watch your motivation here sitting next to

6:22

somebody who's got a strong body odor, but you

6:24

know is going to attract mosquitoes or Please

6:27

child go and have a shower before you

6:29

come back to the barbecue I've never found

6:31

that my mosquito magnet friends are like noticeably

6:34

stinkier to me, but it must only be

6:36

stinkier to mosquito I think that might well be

6:38

the case. So my question then is if because you

6:40

know, you can have fecal Microbiotic

6:42

transplants where people get like a poo

6:44

transplant to get the healthy bacteria into

6:47

their bowel if they've been really really

6:49

sick And there's been some

6:51

emerging research about oral microbiome Transplants

6:53

as well. Could you perhaps have

6:55

a skin microbiome transplant if you

6:57

were like really badly mosquito-magnet II?

7:00

Okay, so I've got a really gross now you

7:02

mean if I were to lick your ankle don't

7:04

lick Yes,

7:07

okay, okay or lick an ankle and make a

7:09

difference You have to factor

7:11

into all this. There's a distinct advantage to have

7:13

a mosquito attractor at the table You know, do

7:15

you really want to intervene? But

7:17

there is another thing that goes with mosquito

7:20

attractants and that's car color

7:23

of What your hair your

7:25

clothes? Really?

7:27

Yeah. Now this varies

7:29

according to mosquito species

7:32

And the earliest paper I found on this was in the

7:35

1940s where they did a study and there's no You know

7:37

recent study of this where they've actually exposed

7:41

Different mosquito so interesting in the 1940s study

7:43

was in a D's Mosquitoes

7:45

now a D's mosquitoes by the way are

7:48

the commonest overarching species of

7:50

mosquito in Australia and The

7:53

One that they did more recently was

7:55

Anopheles, which is the one that transmits

7:58

malaria. What's common to all mosquitoes? Species

8:00

seems to be feather

8:02

attract to black a

8:04

very dark cars and

8:06

there are some species

8:08

that may be also

8:10

attracted to ten car

8:12

or dark blue or

8:14

red the other common

8:16

factor in car. Is

8:19

that when we did this experiment

8:21

in the lab and the expose

8:23

the mosquitoes to light the went

8:26

from hundreds of mosquitoes landing on

8:28

black. To. One mosquito landing

8:30

on white. Is that maybe?

8:32

yeah? Kennesaw state? Like Miss Good

8:34

as a black and so it

8:36

there? Maybe instinctively listen to camouflage

8:39

himself and Doc surfaces. Back

8:41

to be one theory. I'm if

8:43

we were able to interrogate a

8:45

mosquito. Another could be that whites

8:47

is not associated. plot. Okay

8:50

if you are a dark skinned person

8:52

or a light skinned person, does that

8:55

affect how tracked? If you out of

8:57

miskitos it. Isn't that

8:59

an interesting idea? The

9:01

people I know who are attracted to

9:03

discuss retracts to actually fair skinned you

9:05

have a say. So. That doesn't

9:07

really. Yeah, donate more research requires.

9:09

So down to the common things: com or

9:12

dioxide. If you've sat down

9:14

for your eating barbecue outside and

9:16

you just been that the gym

9:18

and exercising you are actually going

9:20

to be producing more carbon dioxide

9:22

that you will be excusing more

9:24

a body heat so that could

9:26

make it more attractive. And once

9:28

you've had your shower changing to

9:30

a white tee shirts, white linen

9:33

pants and went suitcase. As a

9:35

yellow say look like an Instagram a

9:37

while you avoid the mosquitoes we shouldn't

9:39

like were joking around and in Australia

9:41

mosquitoes. Ah, Ch vectors the disease

9:44

that globally I mean, I think the

9:46

the most deadly animal on earth. When

9:48

you consider that diseases they transmit, what

9:51

else do we have in our arsenal

9:53

to help protect against them? especially for

9:55

people who are seemingly at increased susceptibility

9:58

to them. Pretty. Good question. And

10:00

what's recommended is if you're

10:02

in a high malaria are

10:04

high in damage area of

10:07

diseases like thing and so

10:09

on. Don't go outside as

10:11

the sun is going done.

10:13

Stay inside, cover your body

10:15

as much as possible. We

10:18

would say white and use

10:20

insect repellent is mosquito repellents.

10:22

It's appropriate for that particular

10:24

environment if you're overseas and

10:26

talking about transmitting infection and

10:29

we have. A look at different

10:31

mosquitoes been different parts of Australia

10:33

the remarkably similar as you go

10:35

further north and for example in

10:37

your area breeze been there isn't

10:39

a mosquito called eighty Slavery for

10:41

ons which collects and the water

10:43

under plants and then some ideas

10:45

vigil acts which is a salt

10:47

marsh most a nose vigilance is

10:49

all over his tenure and it's

10:51

the one that can carry Rostraver

10:54

fever bomb of are far as

10:56

far as smart he valued apply

10:58

to so it's it's a nasty.

11:00

And on one west says or

11:02

thirty species, but very similar to

11:04

the east coast so there are

11:06

amongst our mosquitoes ones that certainly

11:08

can carry serious disease. Yeah and

11:10

when they're attracted to warmer weather and

11:12

whether whether with climate change them at

11:14

the meeting out of those where they

11:16

currently are into new environment. Say has

11:18

absolutely right. I don't like the

11:20

not say you realize that you either miss

11:22

get elected that the table. It's tempting to

11:25

discipline a like completely. Eradicate every

11:27

miss. get it from the face

11:29

of the as well and insects

11:32

researchers queens lions are trying to

11:34

do that with the ones who

11:36

carry thingy by fixing a mosquitoes

11:38

box renders them as a member

11:41

rightly and Fatone has that effect

11:43

hang on spreading around the world.

11:45

I feel even if I have this conversation with people

11:47

they like good like get rid of them. Get. It. Wasn't

11:50

feeling was we have this. They're

11:52

actually really important in of global

11:54

ecosystem so. Our main interaction with mosquitoes

11:56

that we realize is when they bite you

11:58

in his abdomen and. the bit of

12:00

blood on your hand and it's grows. And they

12:03

are really deadly animals, but they're actually

12:05

really important in the food chain. They're

12:07

really important pollinators, especially the male mosquitoes,

12:09

which don't bite humans. They're just the

12:11

big kind of weird ones that you

12:13

sometimes see every now and again. Their

12:16

larvae and eggs are food for fish

12:18

and turtles and amphibians and stuff and

12:21

birds and bats also eat them. Although

12:24

when I think about mosquito larvae

12:26

as food for bats, it's sort of like

12:28

which potentially deadly animal would you like to protect?

12:31

That's also really important pollinators. Okay, so be

12:34

kind to mosquitoes. Is what you're telling me?

12:36

I mean, slap them if they're

12:39

on you, I think. I think that's a

12:41

fairly defensible position, but eradicating them entirely would

12:43

have knock-on effects that would be bad. Like

12:46

we wouldn't have any food to eat. But to

12:48

answer Patrick's question, yes, there are some

12:50

people who are attractors. There's no question

12:52

about that, but you can minimise

12:54

the impact and go and have a shower. Go

12:57

have a shower, Patrick. There's one benefit related to our

12:59

previous Watch That Rache that I think that

13:01

we could speculate on.

13:04

Do you think that mosquitoes could be

13:06

benefiting from all these multivitamins that we've

13:08

been taking? You're

13:10

accusing multivitamins of giving us expensive

13:13

wee. They may also be

13:15

giving us supercharged mosquitoes. That's right, they're

13:17

just getting a real... Really muscly mosquitoes,

13:19

really burly. And we've had lots of

13:21

feedback to our multivitamin episode

13:23

a few weeks ago. We've

13:26

had lots of requests looking at specific

13:28

vitamins, such as DCB3, we won't get

13:30

to those in time. And Barbara's

13:32

got a comment. Yes, so Barbara's

13:35

saying, and I think that this really speak to

13:37

the motivation behind a lot of people taking them

13:39

as well, many well-meaning

13:42

parents apply their kids as vitamins because they

13:44

reckon the little ones aren't getting enough of

13:46

the good things in their diets. And so

13:48

Barbara's saying, if a child is a fussy

13:50

eater and won't eat their veggies, should

13:52

they be given vitamin tablets? Now, I heard a rumor,

13:54

Norman Swan, that you are actually a pediatrician. Well,

13:57

not a pediatrician, but I did train in pediatrics. And

14:00

last week on 7.30, I actually did a

14:02

story on this. As

14:04

kids get into their second year of

14:07

life, so from 12 months, they become

14:09

fussy eaters. And then parents start to

14:11

worry that the kids

14:13

aren't getting enough nutrition. And what my story

14:15

was about last week was toddler milks. One

14:18

in three Australian toddlers are on one of

14:20

these toddler formula, which are dreadful things. I

14:22

mean, they're quenching with

14:24

carbohydrates, added sugars,

14:26

they're sweetened, and

14:29

probably associated with obesity, and

14:31

maybe associated with making your child

14:34

more fussy, not less. And

14:36

the story of a fussy eater is, sit

14:39

them down, and you all eat at the same

14:41

time, they're eating adult food, and

14:44

keep on offering them the new

14:46

foods that you're eating at the table. And don't

14:48

worry if they reject them. And the

14:51

thing is not to make meal times a battle.

14:53

And multivitamins will not solve the problem. Which is

14:55

what you do with your kids, too? Yeah. And

14:58

never had a single supplement. Never had a

15:00

single tantrum. I

15:02

didn't say that. Now,

15:05

we're coming to the land of the mosquito. Well,

15:07

I'm coming up to the land of the mosquito

15:09

team for a special event at

15:12

the World Times Conference. Oh, are you talking about

15:14

my home state of Queensland? Because we

15:16

have many more things than mosquitoes up here. And

15:18

one of which is a

15:20

live recording of what's that rash, which

15:23

you can all come to. I hope people come.

15:25

Please send us your questions to that

15:27

rash at abc.net.au. And

15:29

if you can be in Brisbane to

15:31

come to our live show, we want you to be

15:34

there. And we might even let you ask

15:36

a question in real life. Yep. So two

15:38

double passes to give away. Send in your

15:40

questions now. And if you meet me blush,

15:42

you've won. Yeah,

15:44

it's an adults-only event. So go wild. Black

15:47

people, what's that rash? See you next week. See

15:49

you then. You've

16:02

been listening to an ABC Podcast. Discover

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