Can Drinking Alcohol Make You More Prone to Mosquito Bites?

A small part of me dreads summer in the city. Showing some skin comes with a price: Sunscreen layered with what I like to call my favorite warm-weather “fragrance:” Bug spray with DEET. To say that mosquitoes love me is an understatement.

Childhood visits to the Philippines required hotel reservations rather than staying with family because I would get eaten alive. A two-week trip to Thailand with a then-boyfriend resulted in one hospital visit and a week’s long supply of antibiotics, all because of 37 mosquito bites. I’ve even woken up to three bites on my face in the dead of winter. If those pesky little blood suckers are in my vicinity, I will be bitten. Recently, an old study linking alcohol consumption and mosquito attraction is making its rounds on social media again. Does this mean it’s time to rethink rosé season, too? Floyd Shockley, PhD., FRES, entomology collections manager at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History , says the answer to that question is nuanced (and not just about alcohol, actually). “It’s not really the alcohol that mosquitoes are attracted to,” Dr. “But because of the ways they locate and identify potential blood hosts, which all change in response to ingestion of alcohol, resulting in increased attraction.” Female mosquitoes (they are the ones doing the biting, not males, because they need it as fuel for reproduction) bite in order to mature their eggs, Shockley says. Who they pick to feast on depends on a few things. While studies show that certain blood types , diet , and fragrances and lotions make you more attractive to insects, he says those actually play a very small role in why you get bitten. So, what is literal mosquito bait?

Key points

• Childhood visits to the Philippines required hotel reservations rather than staying with family because I would get eaten alive.
• A two-week trip to Thailand with a then-boyfriend resulted in one hospital visit and a week’s long supply of antibiotics, all because of 37 mosquito bites.
• I’ve even woken up to three bites on my face in the dead of winter.
• If those pesky little blood suckers are in my vicinity, I will be bitten.
• Recently, an old study linking alcohol consumption and mosquito attraction is making its rounds on social media again.