A recent Dutch study reveals that beer drinkers are significantly more attractive to mosquitoes, increasing their risk of bites and diseases.

Researchers at a music festival found that alcohol consumption, along with skipping sunscreen and showers, alters body odor, making individuals irresistible to these bloodsuckers.

A 2002 study in the Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association observed that individuals who drank a single bottle of beer became more susceptible to mosquito bites, a finding later confirmed with malaria-carrying mosquitoes in a 2010 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

Just a liter of beer can make you more attractive to the insects, one 2010 study found. Researchers tested whether beer may have altered carbon dioxide or body temperature and attracted the insects, but they found neither of these factors were correlated with increased attention, making mosquito affinity for drinkers something of a mystery.

The alcohol may ring the dinner bell, but McAlister points out, the main factors attracting the mosquitoes towards you are probably entwined in your genetic make-up. Simply saying no to an ice-cold beer probably won’t save you from their attentions. And on the plus side, at least with a drink or two, you may not feel the itching quite so much. I know that last one for a fact.

Mosquitoes love beer but hate showers

One simple experiment was done. Over the course of the festival, around 500 people stuck their arm in the box full of mosquito and every interaction was recorded on video for the researchers to analyze all the data. Meanwhile, the volunteers also answered a questionnaire about their behavior at the festival.

By comparing these questionnaire answers with the videos that showed how many mosquitoes landed on each person’s arms, the researchers saw some interesting patterns. The people who attracted the most mosquitoes were those who drank beer as well as people who smoked marijuana or shared their bed with others. “They simply have a taste for the hedonists among us,”

The researchers wrote in a preprint publication uploaded to BioRXiv. On the other hand, people who used sunscreen or recently took a shower were less enticing to the mosquitoes.

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Beer drinkers were 44% more attractive to the bloodsuckers than people who had abstained from suds for at least 12 hours, cannabis users were 35% more attractive, and those who had slept with someone else the night before were 46% more attractive