Originally published July 17 2004
Cinnamon oil kills mosquitos better than DEET, research shows
by Mike Adams (see all articles by this author)
Stop using those dangerous personal care products like mosquito repellant -- they're loaded with toxic chemicals like DEET. Instead, stick with natural substances that work just as well, like cinnamon oil, which has now been shown to be just as effective as DEET in killing mosquitos. Look for natural products containing cinnamon oil.
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Cinnamon oil shows promise as a great-smelling, environmentally friendly pesticide, with the ability to kill mosquito larvae more effectively than DEET, according to a new study.
- Besides being a summer nuisance, mosquitoes pose some major public health problems, carrying such deadly agents as malaria, yellow fever and West Nile virus.
- "These problems have highlighted the need for new strategies for mosquito larval control," says natural products chemist Peter Shang-Tzen Chang, a professor in the School of Forestry and Resource Conservation at National Taiwan University and lead author of the paper.
- Chang and his coworkers tested eleven compounds in cinnamon leaf oil for their ability to kill emerging larvae of the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti.
- "The LC50 value is the concentration that kills 50 percent of mosquito larvae in 24 hours," Chang explains.
- All four compounds had LC50 values of less than 50 parts per million (ppm), with cinnamaldehyde showing the strongest activity at an LC50 of 29 ppm.
- For comparison, the LC50 of DEET--- an extremely popular pesticide and mosquito repellant --- is more than 50 ppm.
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