Coffee Grounds Inhibiting Zika

These coffee grounds inhibit mosquito fertility

Mosquito problem in your area? Did you ever consider using your coffee grounds to inhibit the mosquitos?

One of the mosquitos that carries the Zika Virus, Aedes Aldopictus, inhibits a part of the reproductive cycle of the female. When coffee waste is present the mosquitos lay fewer eggs.

From the study:

Conclusions

The observations of the present study indicate a pronounced vulnerability of Ae. albopictus to the presence of coffee in its habitats during the early phases of its life cycle. The observations that coffee repels gravid females and inhibits larval eclosion provide novel possibilities in the search for novel oviposition deterrents and anti-larval eclosion agents against dengue vectors.

Those old coffee grounds may be useful to decrease the mosquito population.

Mosquitos lay eggs in liquid – they are attracted to brown colored liquid – and if that is coffee, it inhibits mosquito fertility

It turns out these mosquitos are attracted to brown colored water – but the compounds in the coffee prevent normal mosquito development.

I can just see a Jim Hunt cartoon – a female mosquito at a fertility clinic with a cup of coffee.

So instead of tossing those old coffee grounds into the trash or down the sink, consider putting them into your garden and lawn.

REFERENCE

Parasit Vectors. 2015; 8: 272.
Published online 2015 May 14. doi: 10.1186/s13071-015-0874-6
PMCID: PMC4436121
Coffee and its waste repel gravid Aedes albopictus females and inhibit the development of their embryos
Tomomitsu Satho, Hamady Dieng,corresponding author Muhammad Hishamuddin Itam Ahmad, Salbiah Binti Ellias, Ahmad Abu Hassan, Fatimah Abang, Idris Abd Ghani, Fumio Miake, Hamdan Ahmad, Yuki Fukumitsu, Wan Fatma Zuharah, Abdul Hafiz Ab Majid, Nur Faeza Abu Kassim, Nur Aida Hashim, Olaide Olawunmi Ajibola, Fatima Abdulla Al-Khayyat, and Cirilo Nolasco-Hipolito

Dr. Terry Simpson

About the Author

You probably first saw Dr. Simpson on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook or Twitter. Dr. Terry Simpson received his undergraduate, graduate, and medical degrees from the University of Chicago, where he spent several years in the Kovler Viral Oncology laboratories doing genetic engineering. Until he found he liked people more than Petri dishes. After a career in surgery, his focus is to make sense of the madness, and bust myths. Dr. Simpson, an advocate of culinary medicine, believes in teaching people to improve their health through their food and in their kitchen. On the other side of the world, he has been a leading advocate of changing health care to make it more "relationship based," and his efforts awarded his team the Malcolm Baldrige award for healthcare in 2018 and 2011 for the NUKA system of care in Alaska and in 2013 Dr Simpson won the National Indian Health Board Area Impact Award. A frequent contributor to media outlets discussing health related topics and advances in medicine, he is also a proud dad, author, cook, and doctor “in that order.” For media inquiries, please visit www.terrysimpson.com.