Can vitamins be used to repel mosquitoes and ticks?

Getting enough vitamin B1 in your diet is essential for maintaining a healthy body. Vitamin B1, which is also commonly called thiamine, helps improve brain function, helps your body digest food, turns carbohydrates into energy and can help treat certain types of disease. Thiamine is available from a variety of different sources. Your body does not store vitamin B1 regularly so you need to be sure that you’re getting the right amount.

Some say that taking vitamin B1 or using skin patches with high doses of the vitamin can be used to keep ticks and other bugs like mosquitoes away. One claim says that a 100 mg. a day tablet will keep mosquitoes from biting. Another claim says that biting insects, and in particular mosquitoes dislike the smell of thiamine so they will choose an alternative source of food, leaving the wearer of a thiamine skin patch bite free. Some patches may contain 75 mg. or more of thiamine and are said to last up to 36 hours.

Research studies show that taking B1 has no impact at all on stopping mosquito bites; nor does taking B3 or B5. Various studies have been done in the U.S., Canada and Brazil proving that taking vitamin B did not work. Also, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explicitly state that vitamin B1 does not repel mosquitoes.

The body typically needs only about 1.5 mg of thiamine per day for a healthy diet; excess thiamine is passed through the urine, breath and skin. The body actually only absorbs 10-15% of any vitamin pill taken. Overdosing on any vitamin could have consequences and using a skin patch could cause skin irritation. Symptoms of a thiamine overdose may include a feeling of warmth, weakness, sweating, nausea, restlessness, difficulty breathing, tightness of the throat, bluish colored skin, and death.

With the increase in Lyme disease from ticks and West Nile Virus from mosquitoes some people are very insistent that B1 does work and they even give megadoses of it to their dogs. So if you want to try any product such as a thiamine skin patch, know its dosage and its potential side effects and talk with your vet before giving thiamine to your pet.

Tick Tackler LLC offers the Outdoor Bug Protection Patch, a transdermal patch that slowly releases vitamin B1 into the dermal skin layer of the body, becoming effective in 2 hours. The vitamin B1 is then slowly released through the skins pores through sweat glands. Combined with the body’s own chemistry it produces an invisible, odorless shield.

It is supposed to be extremely effective against all blood sucking insects including mosquitoes, flies, sand flies, no see ums, fleas, ticks, gnats, chiggers, deerflies. These patches work for 36 hours and stay on in water.

Tick Tackler LLC also provides organic tick spraying and practical backyard recommendations to residents of Hunterdon, Somerset, Warren, Morris, Sussex, Union and Middlesex counties in NJ and Northampton, Lehigh and Upper Bucks counties in PA.

Rather than using harsh, traditional, synthetic, or chemical pesticides, Tick Tackler LLC uses an all-natural botanical control agent that disrupts the tick molting process. Their products are gentle on beneficial creatures such as earthworms and lady bugs. Their products are approved by the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) and listed with the EPA and NJ DEP.

Every year, approximately one-third of the U.S. population is expected to use DEET. It does not kill ticks but repels them. Bug repellents with DEET should be used on long sleeved shirts and long pants to help keep the bugs away. It is best not to use it on your bare skin. Still, some repellents containing 20% or less DEET are said to be safe on the skin, and can protect up to several hours.

Products containing permethrin do kill ticks. Dermal exposure to permethrin though may cause irritation, itching, or paresthesia (a tingly, prickly sensation) at the site of contact. Permethrin can be used to treat boots, clothing and camping gear and remain protective through several washings.

Picaridin has been widely used in other parts of the world, and has been available in the U.S. in a variety of brands since 2005. Structurally based on chemicals in pepper, it appears to interfere with the mosquito’s ability to smell its prey. The chemical is extremely effective for some species of mosquito, but is less effective for other species that don’t appear to rely on smell, so overall it may be somewhat less effective than DEET. A 20% Picaridin formulation has been shown to repel mosquitoes for 8-10 hours.

Picaridin is much less irritating to the skin than DEET, so it might be a better choice for people with sensitive skin. It has very low toxicity and does not appear to cause adverse neurological or reproductive effects. Nor does it cause cancer in animals. It also lacks the unpleasant odor of DEET.

Be aware that tick-repelling chemicals can have serious health concerns, especially for young children and pets. Some dogs have very serious reactions to certain chemicals, including seizures and even death, and unfortunately there’s no real way to know in advance if your dog will be one of them.

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