Outliers: Smelling the potential to fight malaria

Outliers was intrigued to learn that the answer to battling malaria may have been right at our feet all along. Scientists say the stench of human feet could be a potent new tool to fight the deadly mosquito-borne disease that is estimated to kill more than 600,000 people a year.

“Smelly feet have a use after all,” Dr. James Logan, who headed the research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the Associated Press. “Every time we identify a new part of how the malaria mosquito interacts with us, we're one step closer to controlling it better.”

In a laboratory study, researchers found that mosquitoes infected with the tropical disease were more attracted to human odors from a dirty sock than those that didn't carry malaria. Insects carrying malaria parasites were three times more likely to be drawn to the stinky stockings.

The finding may help create traps that target only malaria-carrying mosquitoes, researchers say. The sock findings were published recently in the journal PLoS One.

Logan said the next step is to identify the chemicals in human foot odor so that it can be made synthetically for mosquito traps. But given mosquitoes' highly developed sense of smell, getting that formula right will be challenging.

Some smelly cheeses have the same odor as feet, Logan noted.

“But mosquitoes aren't attracted to cheese because they've evolved to know the difference,” he said. “You have to get the mixture, ratios and concentrations of those chemicals exactly right otherwise the mosquito won't think it's a human.”

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