Why Those Itchy Mosquito Bites Can Be Dangerous — and Why Some People Are Mosquito Magnets

Mosquito bites seem like an inevitability of summer, but these red bumps are more than just an annoyance — they’re potentially dangerous. According to Science Daily, the reason they’re so itchy is that when a mosquito bites you, it injects saliva into your skin. Your body’s immune response is to send white blood cells and myeloid cells rushing to the site, causing inflammation — but this tactic often backfires, and the immune cells themselves get infected.

Once the infected mosquito bite becomes inflamed, it’s much easier for the area to replicate and spread viruses such as Zika throughout your body, says a study conducted by the University of Leeds. Other viruses, like dengue and Chikungunya, have been known to spread through infected bites too — and they can lead to severe illnesses.

Scientists involved in the study injected viruses into mice with and without mosquito bites, and they were shocked to discover that mosquito bites drastically increased the level of virus in the skin by infecting the immune cells that hustled to the bite site. “And sure enough, when we stopped these immune cells coming in, the bite did not enhance the infection anymore,” concluded Clive McKimmie, PhD, the senior author of the study and a research fellow at the University of Leeds School of Medicine.

So who’s most susceptible to disease-causing mosquito bites? “Mosquito magnets” tend to be people with Type O blood, as well as beer drinkers. According to Mental Floss, all it takes is 12 ounces of beer to attract these nipping pests. That’s enough for them to sense the ethanol in your body produced by the alcohol in beer.

Other factors that make people irresistible to mosquitoes include body heat, chemicals in your sweat, and genetics. Smithsonian Magazine reports that pregnancy can also increase your susceptibility and that an estimated 20 percent of people are more desirable to mosquitoes than other folks.

Insect repellent helps, but mosquitoes have also been known to develop a tolerance to these chemicals over time.

Sources: Yahoo.com/beauty 24 Jun 2016
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