Insect bites

[mel]

When we're out together why does my husband get bitten by everything going while they don't touch me at all?

[5029]

Different blood groups - Insects love group A

[Hamish]

How could they know your blood group without biting first?

[mel]

Thanks, that works - he's an A and I'm not. So how do they tell before having a taste?

[5029]

As far as I know its true - and I've never come across an exception to the rule! Mosquitos use their sense of smell and I think thats how they tell. If you want to make sure you never get bitten, start taking vitamin B1 everyday (available from holland and barratt shops, or their online shop) 2 weeks before you go. This gives your blood a strange smell which the mossies don't like and they won't touch you. Keep taking the recommeded daily dosag until you come home - but it must be vit B1, ordinary vit b doesn't work

[bimsey]

i am blood group a and i always get bitten loads so i agree with the answer.

[Fyncu Myncu]

I'm AB, and I usually find that I don't get bitten for the first week or so, but then they start biting me, and once they start, it gets gradually worse and worse. How does that fit in?

[Andromeda]

Sorry guys, sounds feasible, but I'm A Rhesus + and I never get bitten. Definitely is the smell though. May be I am the exception that proves the rule?

Andy

[Redclaire]

As far as I know, it's nothing to do with blood groups! The answer is, that you *are* being bitten, it's just that you aren't allergic to the bites. The itchy red lumps aren't caused by the actual bites, but an allergy to something in the midge (possibly saliva or similar) and that is also the reason why people have a wide range of different reactions to bites, some peoples swell up big, others are tiny etc.

[incitatus]

The answer is halfway between....some people are bitten more than others, and some are more sensitive to the allergens than others. Lots of work has been done on bite attractants. The biggest one is co2, which you breathe out. mossies follow your breathe to you. After that, at close range body temperature seems to play a role. Any deviations from the norm make you more unlikely to be bitten. Then its pheromones, which is where blood group etc. canplay a part. I use pheromone in a very broad , and semi innaccurate sense here...meaning any trace chemical given off in sweat or breathe. For exxample tsetse flies are attracted to octanoic acid, a component of vegetable digestion, often found in cow breath. Some things repel them. Garlic seems to repel mossies to some extent. so does testosterone, so bodybuilders rarely get bitten....There are lots of factors. if you are one of the bitten fol;k, just think of the service you are doing attracting the things away from the rest of us.

[elpedro]

we all get bitten its just that some people have a visible reaction and some dont , a bit like an allergy to the bite

[woolleysheep]

do people who eat GARLIC get bitten