The chemists of the University of Florida and the U.S. department of agriculture feel your pain. They’ve just published a study that might lead to improving the lives mosquito haters everywhere. Currently, the most effective ingredient in insect repellent on the market is DEET (N,N-diethyl-m-toluamide). DEET has been the gold standard for over 50 years and it protects us from the various diseases we can contract from mosquito bites such as malaria, West Nile Virus , yellow fever, encephalitis, Lyme disease and dengue fever. DEET is the ingredient used in most insect repellents. Around one third of the American population use insect repellent according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Kenan Professor Alan R Katritzky of the University of Florida led the way having researchers review hundreds of chemicals, data that has been collected by the USDA for the past 50 years. After each chemical was reviewed, they were rated on effectiveness on a scale of 1 to 5. They took all the highest ratings and compared the chemicals in order to figure out what the common factor was.
N-acylpiperidines (compounds from black pepper) was the chemical that they found the most effective compounds had in common. N-acylpiperidine, according to the New York Times , is...