What causes the itch in mozzie bites? And why do some people get such a bad reaction?
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Are you one of these people who loathes spending time outdoors at dusk as the weather warms and mosquitoes start biting?
Female mosquitoes need blood to develop their eggs. Even though they take a tiny amount of our blood, they can leave us with itchy red lumps that can last days. And sometimes something worse.
So why does our body react and itch after being bitten by a mosquito? And why are some people more affected than others?
What happens when a mosquito bites?
Mosquitoes are attracted to warm blooded animals, including us. They’re attracted to the carbon dioxide we exhale, our body temperatures and, most importantly, the smell of our skin.
The chemical cocktail of odours from bacteria and sweat on our skin sends out a signal to hungry mosquitoes.
Some people’s skin smells more appealing to mosquitoes, and they’re more likely to be bitten than others.
Once the mosquito has made its way to your skin, things get a little gross.
The mosquito pierces your skin with their “proboscis”, their feeding mouth part. But the proboscis isn’t a single, straight, needle-like tube. There are multiple tubes, some designed for sucking and some for spitting.
Once their mouth parts have been inserted into your skin, the mosquito will inject some saliva. This contains a mix of chemicals that gets the blood flowing better.
There has even been a suggestion that future medicines could be inspired by the anti-blood clotting properties of mosquito saliva.
It’s not the stabbing of our skin by the mosquito’s mouth parts that hurts, it’s the mozzie spit our bodies don’t like.
Are some people allergic to mosquito spit?
Once a mosquito has injected their saliva into our skin, a variety of reactions can follow. For the lucky few, nothing much happens at all.
For most people, and irrespective of the type of mosquito biting, there is some kind of reaction. Typically there is redness and swelling of the skin that appears within a few hours, but often more quickly, after just a few minutes.
Occasionally, the reaction can cause pain or discomfort. Then comes the itchiness.
Some people do suffer severe reactions to mosquito bites. It’s a condition often referred to as “skeeter syndrome” and is an allergic reaction caused by the protein in the mosquito’s saliva. This can cause large areas of swelling, blistering and fever.
The chemistry of mosquito spit hasn’t really been well studied. But it has been shown that, for those who do suffer allergic reactions to their bites, the reactions may differ depending on the type of mosquito biting.
We all probably get more tolerant of mosquito bites as we get older. Young children are certainly more likely to suffer more following mosquito bites. But as we get older, the reactions are less severe and may pass quickly without too much notice.
How best to treat the bites?
Research into treating bites has yet to provide a single easy solution.
There are many myths and home remedies about what works. But there is little scientific evidence supporting their use.
The best way to treat mosquito bites is by applying a cold pack to reduce swelling and to keep the skin clean to avoid any secondary infections. Antiseptic creams and lotions may also help.
There is some evidence that heat may alleviate some of the discomfort.
It’s particularly tough to keep young children from scratching at the bite and breaking the skin. This can form a nasty scab that may end up being worse than the bite itself.
Applying an anti-itch cream may help. If the reactions are severe, antihistamine medications may be required.
To save the scratching, stop the bites
Of course, it’s better not to be bitten by mosquitoes in the first place. Topical insect repellents are a safe, effective and affordable way to reduce mosquito bites.
Covering up with loose fitted long sleeved shirts, long pants and covered shoes also provides a physical barrier.
Mosquito coils and other devices can also assist, but should not be entirely relied on to stop bites.
There’s another important reason to avoid mosquito bites: millions of people around the world suffer from mosquito-borne diseases. More than half a million people die from malaria each year.
In Australia, Ross River virus infects more than 5,000 people every year. And in recent years, there have been cases of serious illnesses caused by Japanese encephalitis and Murray Valley encephalitis viruses.
Cameron Webb, Clinical Associate Professor and Principal Hospital Scientist, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Gut-Healthy Tacos
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Full of prebiotics and probiotics, healthy fats, colorful salad boasting vitamins and minerals aplenty, and of course satisfying protein too, these tacos are also boasting generous flavors to keep you coming back for more…
You will need
- 24 sardines—canned is fine (if vegetarian/vegan, substitute tempeh and season generously; marinade if you have time)
- 12 small wholewheat tortillas
- 1 14oz/400g can black beans, drained
- 1 ripe avocado, stoned and cut into small chunks
- 1 red onion, thinly sliced
- 1 little gem lettuce, shredded
- 12 cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1 bulb garlic, crushed
- 1 lemon, sliced
- 4 tbsp plain unsweetened yogurt (your choice what kind, but something with a live culture is best)
- 3oz pickled jalapeños, roughly chopped
- 1oz cilantro (or substitute parsley if you have the cilantro-tastes-like-soap gene), finely chopped
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- Juice of 1 lime
- Optional: Tabasco sauce, or similar hot sauce
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Preheat your oven to a low temperature; 200℉ or just under 100℃ is fine
2) Place the lemon slices on top of the sardines on top of foil on a baking tray; you want the foil to be twice as much as you’d expect to need, because now you’re going to fold it over and make a sort of sealed envelope. You could use a dish with a lid yes, but this way is better because there’s going to be less air inside. Upturn the edges of the envelope slightly so that juices won’t run out, and make sure the foil is imperfectly sealed so a little steam can escape but not much at a time. This will ensure it doesn’t dry out, while also ensuring your house doesn’t smell of fish. Put all this into the oven on a middle shelf.
3) Mix the lime juice with the onion in a bowl, and add the avocado and tomatoes, mixing gently. Add half the cilantro, and set aside.
4) Put the black beans in a sieve and pour boiling water over them to refresh and slightly warm them. Tip them into a bowl and add the olive oil, black pepper, and paprika. Mix thoroughly with a fork, and no need to be gentle this time; in fact, deliberately break the beans a little in this case.
5) Mix the yogurt, jalapeños, garlic, and remaining cilantro in a small bowl.
6) Get the warmed sardines from the oven; discard the lemon slices.
7) Assemble! We recommend the order: tortilla, lettuce, fish (2 per taco), black bean mixture, salad mixture, garlic jalapeño yogurt mixture. You can also add a splash of the hot sauce per your preference, or if catering for more people, let people add their own.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of
- Level-Up Your Fiber Intake! (Without Difficulty Or Discomfort)
- Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)
- Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits?
- Enjoy Pungent Polyphenols For Your Heart & Brain
Take care!
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Body by Science – by Dr. Doug McGuff & John Little
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The idea that you’ll get a re-sculpted body at 12 minutes per week is a bold claim, isn’t it? Medical Doctor Doug McGuff and bodybuilder John Little team up to lay out their case. So, how does it stand up to scrutiny?
First, is it “backed by rigorous research” as claimed? Yes… with caveats.
The book uses a large body of scientific literature as its foundation, and that weight of evidence does support this general approach:
- Endurance cardio isn’t very good at burning fat
- Muscle, even just having it without using it much, burns fat to maintain it
- To that end, muscle can be viewed as a fat-burning asset
- Muscle can be grown quickly with short bursts of intense exercise once per week
Why once per week? The most relevant muscle fibers take about that long to recover, so doing it more often will undercut gains.
So, what are the caveats?
The authors argue for slow reps of maximally heavy resistance work sufficient to cause failure in about 90 seconds. However, most of the studies cited for the benefits of “brief intense exercise” are for High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). HIIT involves “sprints” of exercise. It doesn’t have to be literally running, but for example maxing out on an exercise bike for 30 seconds, slowing for 60, maxing out for 30, etc. Or in the case of resistance work, explosive (fast!) concentric movements and slow eccentric movements, to work fast- and slow-twitch muscle fibers, respectively.
What does this mean for the usefulness of the book?
- Will it sculpt your body as described in the blurb? Yes, this will indeed grow your muscles with a minimal expenditure of time
- Will it improve your body’s fat-burning metabolism? Yes, this will indeed turn your body into a fat-burning machine
- Will it improve your “complete fitness”? No, if you want to be an all-rounder athlete, you will still need HIIT, as otherwise anything taxing your under-worked fast-twitch muscle fibers will exhaust you quickly.
Bottom line: read this book if you want to build muscle efficiently, and make your body more efficient at burning fat. Best supplemented with at least some cardio, though!
Click here to check out Body by Science, and get re-sculpting yours!
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Energize! – by Dr. Michael Breus & Stacey Griffith
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We previously reviewed another book book by Dr. Breus, The Power Of When. So what’s different in this one?
While the chronotypes featured in The Power Of When also feature here (and sufficient explanation is given to make this a fine stand-alone book), this book has a lot to do with metabolism also. By considering a person’s genetically predisposed metabolic rate to be fast, medium, or slow (per being an ectomorph, mesomorph, or endomorph), and then putting that next to one’s sleep chronotype, we get 12 sub-categories that in this book each get an optimized protocol of sleep, exercise (further divided into: what kind of exercise when), and eating/fasting.
Which, in effect, amounts to a personalized coaching program for optimized energy!
The guidance is based on a combination of actual science plus “if this then that” observation-based principles—of the kind that could be described as science if they had been studied clinically instead of informally. Dr. Breus is a sleep scientist, by the way, and his co-author Stacey Griffith is a fitness coach. So between the two of them, they have sleep and exercise covered, and the fasting content is very reasonable and entirely consistent with current consensus of good practice.
The style is very pop-psychology, and very readable, and has a much more upbeat feel than The Power Of When, which seems to be because of Griffith’s presence as a co-author (most of the book is written from a neutral perspective, and some parts have first-person sections by each of the authors, so the style becomes distinct accordingly).
Bottom line: if you’d like to be more energized but [personal reason why not here] then this book may not fix all your problems, but it’ll almost certainly make a big difference and help you to stop sabotaging things and work with your body rather than against it.
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New Year, New Health Habits?
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It’s that time of the year, and many of us hope to make this our healthiest year yet—or at least significantly improve it in some particular area that’s important to us! So, what news from the health world?
The rise of GLP-1 agonists continues
GLP-1 agonists have surged in popularity in the past year, and it looks like that trend is set to continue in the new one. The title of the below-linked pop-science article is slightly misleading, it’s not “almost three quarters of UK women”, but rather, “72% of the women using the digital weight loss platform Juniper”, which means the sample is confined to people interested in weight loss. Still, of those interested in weight loss, 72% is a lot, and the sample size was over 1000:
Read in full: New Year, new approach to weight loss: Almost three quarters of UK women are considering using GLP-1s in 2025
Related: 5 ways to naturally boost the “Ozempic Effect” ← these natural methods “hack” the same metabolic pathways as GLP-1 agonists do (it has to do with incretin levels), causing similar results
The lesser of two evils
Smoking is terrible, for everything. Vaping is… Not great, honestly, but as the below-discussed study shows, at the very least it results in much less severe respiratory symptoms than actual smoking. For many, vaping is a halfway-house to actually quitting; for some, it’s just harm reduction, and that too can be worthwhile.
We imagine that probably very few 10almonds readers smoke cigarettes, but we know quite a few use cannabis, which is discussed also:
Read in full: Switching to e-cigarettes may ease respiratory symptoms, offering hope for smokers
Related: Vaping: A Lot Of Hot Air? ← we look at the pros, cons, and popular beliefs that were true a little while ago but now they’re largely not (because of regulatory changes re what’s allowed in vapes)
Sometimes, more is more
The below-linked pop-science article has a potentially confusingly-worded title that makes it sound like increased exercise duration results in decreasing marginal returns (i.e., after a certain point, you’re getting very limited extra benefits), but in fact the study says the opposite.
Rather, increased moderate exercise (so, walking etc) results in a commensurately decreasing weight and a decreasing waistline.
In short: walk more, lose more (pounds and inches). The study examined those who moved their bodies for 150–300 minutes per week:
Read in full: Increased exercise duration linked to decreasing results in weight and waistline
Related: The Doctor Who Wants Us To Exercise Less, & Move More
Take care!
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Shoe Wear Patterns: What They Mean, Why It Matters, & How To Fix It
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If you look under your shoes, do you notice how the tread is worn more in some places than others? Specific patterns of shoe wear correspond to how our body applies force, weight, and rotational movement. This reveals how we move, and uneven wear can indicate problematic movement dynamics.
The clues in your shoes
Common shoe wear patterns include:
- Diagonal wear on the outside of the heel: caused by foot angle, leg position, and instability, leading to joint stress.
- Rotational wear at specific points: due to internal or external rotation, often originating from the hip, pelvis, or torso.
- Wear above the big toe: caused by excessive toe lifting, often associated with a “lighter” or kicking leg.
Fixing movement issues to prevent wear involves correcting posture, improving balance, and adjusting how the legs land during walking/running.
Key fixes include:
- Aligning the center of gravity properly to prevent leg overcompensation.
- Ensuring feet land under the hips and not far in front.
- Stabilizing the torso to avoid unnecessary rotation.
- Engaging the glutes effectively to reduce hip flexor dominance and improve leg mechanics.
- Maintaining even weight distribution on both legs to prevent excessive lifting or twisting.
Posture and walking mechanics are vital to reducing uneven wear, but meaningful, lasting change takes time and focused effort, to build new habits.
For more on all this plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Steps For Keeping Your Feet A Healthy Foundation
Take care!
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Hack Your Hunger
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
When it comes to dealing with hunger, a common-sense way of dealing with it is “eat something”. However, many people find that they then eat the wrong things, in the wrong quantities, and end up in a cycle of overeating and being hungry.
If this gets to the extreme, it can turn into a full-blown eating disorder:
Eating Disorders: More Varied (And Prevalent) Than People Think
…and even in more moderate presentations, the cycle of hunger and overeating is not great for the health. So, how to avoid that?
Listen to your body (but: actually listen)
Your body says: we’re running a little low on glycogen reserves so our energy’s going to start suffering in a few hours if we don’t eat some fruit, kill something and eat its fatty organs, or perhaps find some oily nuts.
You hear: eat something bright and sugary, shout at the dog, eat some fried food, got it!
Your body says: our water balance is a little off, we could do with some sodium, potassium, and perhaps some phosphorus to correct it.
You hear: eat something salty, got it, potato chips coming right up!
…and so on. Now, we know 10almonds readers are quite a health-conscious readership, so perhaps your responses are not quite like that. But the take-away point is still important: we need to listen to the whole message, and give the body what it actually needs, not what will just shut the message off the most quickly.
Here’s how: Intuitive Eating Might Not Be What You Think
Bonus: Interoception: Improving Our Awareness Of Body Cues
About those cravings…
As illustrated a little above, a lot of cravings might not be what they first appear, and in evolutionary terms, our body is centuries behind industrialization, in terms of adaptations, which means that even if we try to take the above into account, our responses can sometimes be inappropriate in the age of supermarkets.
See also: The Science of Hunger, And How To Sate Cravings
Natural appetite suppressants
Eating more is not always the answer, not even if it’s more healthy food. And hunger pangs can be especially inconvenient if, for example, we are fasting at present, which is by the way a very healthful thing for most people:
Learn more: Intermittent Fasting: What’s the truth?
One way to suppress hunger is simply to trigger the stomach into sending “full” signals, which involves filling it. Since you do not want to overeat, the trick here is imply to use high-volume food.
Consider for example: 30 grapes and 30 raisins have approximately the same calorie count (what with raisins being dried grapes, and the calories didn’t evaporate), but the bowl of fresh fruit is going to physically fill your stomach a lot more quickly than the tiny amount of dried fruit.
More on this: Some Surprising Truths About Hunger And Satiety
Protein is of course also an appetite suppressant, but it takes about 20 minutes for the signal to kick in. So a “hack” here is to snack on something proteinous at least 15 minutes before your main meal (for example, a portion of nuts while cooking, unless you’re allergic, or some dried fish unless you’re vegetarian/vegan; you get it, pick something high in protein and good for snacking, and have a small portion before your main meal).
Nor is protein the only option!
See also: 3 Natural Appetite Suppressants Better Than Ozempic
Scale it down
Related to the above, there is a feedback loop that occurs here. The more you eat, the more your stomach slowly grows to accommodate it; the less you eat, the more your stomach slowly shrinks because the body tries hard to be an efficient organism, and will not maintain something that isn’t being used.
So, there’s a bit of a catch-22; sate your hunger by filling your stomach with high volume foods, but filling it will cause it to grow?
The trick is: do the “eat until 80% full” thing. That’s full enough that you have had a nice meal and are not suffering, without stretching the stomach.
Enjoy your food
Seriously! Actually enjoy it. Which means paying full attention to it. Eating can and should be a wonderful experience, so it’s best savored rather than inhaling a bowl of something in 30 seconds.
Have you seen those dog bowls that have obstructions to slow down how quickly a dog eats? We can leverage that kind of trick too! While you might not want to eat from a dog bowl, how about having a little bowl of pistachio nuts rather than ready-to-eat peanuts? Or any shelled nuts that we must shell as we go. If you’re allergic to nuts, there are plenty of other foods with a high work-to-food ratio. Take some time and enjoy that pomegranate, for instance!
Not that we necessarily have to make things difficult for ourselves either; we can just take appropriate care to ensure a good dining experience. Life is for living, so why not enjoy it?
See also: Mindful Eating: How To Get More Out Of What’s On Your Plate
Enjoy!
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