- Cinnamon oil is an environmentally friendly way to kill
mosquito hatchlings, a Taiwanese study shows.
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- It might even make bug repelling better smelling -- although
whether cinnamon oil keeps adult mosquitoes from biting has yet to be tested.
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- The findings, from Sen-Sung Cheng, a natural products
chemist at National Taiwan University, and colleagues, appear in the July
14 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
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- Current mosquito-control efforts often rely on organophosphate
insecticides. Use of these agents has raised health and environmental concerns,
Cheng and colleagues note, so they looked for a different approach. They
noted that cinnamon leaf oils have been shown to inhibit bacteria, termites,
mites, mildew, and fungi.
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- Cheng's team derived various oils from the leaves of
a type of cinnamon tree that grows in Taiwan. They tested the oils -- and
their main ingredients -- against the larvae of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.
This is one of the mosquito species spreading dengue fever -- a viral illness
transmitted to humans by mosquitoes during the feeding process.
-
- They found that one chemical in the oil, cinnamaldehyde,
worked the best. At less than 50 parts per million, it killed half the
mosquito larvae. That's better than DEET, currently the best-known mosquito
repellent which is applied on the skin and repels insects rather than kills
them.
-
- "We think that cinnamon oil might also affect adult
mosquitoes by acting as a repellent," Cheng says in a news release.
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- Cheng says his team plans to test this theory.
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- Cinnamon oil -- which has not been tested for use as
bug repellent -- is sold in small bottles as an aromatherapy.
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- According to the National Toxicology program, cinnamaldehyde
is used in foods, beverages, medical products, perfumes, cosmetics, soaps,
detergents, creams, and lotions. It's also been used as an animal repellent,
as an insect attractant, and as an antifungal agent. It may have toxic
effects at high concentrations.
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- - SOURCES: Cheng, S.-S. Journal of Agricultural and Food
Chemistry, July 14, 2004; vol 52: pp 4395-4400. News release, American
Chemical Society.
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- © 2004 WebMD Inc. All rights reserved. http://my.webmd.com/content/article/90/100845.htm
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