Coconut oil repels leech better than DEET (Kinda)

You can like it or hate it, but coconut oil has many uses. Federal researchers have added an extra feature to the tropical favorite.

It turns out that the fatty acids in coconut oil have a strong repulsion and lasting effectiveness against blood suckers and disease vectors such as mosquitoes, ticks, biting flies and bedbugs. of bed, according to a new study from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) published in Scientific Reports.

In some cases, natural compounds have worked better than DEET, the synthetic active ingredient used in many widely used repellent products.

It is important to note that "coconut oil per se is not a repellent," said senior researcher and entomologist Junwei Zhu in a press release. It is rather the mixtures of free fatty acids derived from coconut oil (lauric acid, capric acid and caprylic acid, as well as their corresponding methyl esters) which have shown a strong repulsion against blood-sucking insects. , found the researchers.

When researchers encapsulated these coconut fatty acids into a starch-based preparation, field trials showed that it could protect livestock from stable flies for 96 hours or 4 days. By comparison, the DEET was only 50% effective against stable flies, while the coconut oil compound was over 95% effective.

With regard to bed bugs and ticks, the DEET lost its effectiveness after about three days, while the coconut oil-based compound lasted about two weeks, revealed the 39; study.

The fatty acids of coconut oil also provided more than 90% mosquito repellency, including Aedes aegypti, the main species responsible for the spread of zika, dengue fever, yellow fever and other diseases. The formula showed a strong repulsion against mosquitoes when higher concentrations of the compounds were applied topically.

Laboratory tests also determined that coconut oil compounds were effective against biting flies and bed bugs for two weeks and had a long lasting repellent against ticks for at least a week.

The use of repellents is one of the most effective ways of preventing the transmission of diseases and the discomfort associated with insect bites. For more than 60 years, DEET has been regarded as the gold standard for insect repellents: the most effective and long-lasting product on the market. However, growing regulation and growing public health concerns regarding synthetic repellents and insecticides such as DEET have generated interest in developing more effective and more sustainable herbal repellents.

Some people refuse to use DEET and turn to folk remedies or herbal repellents. The most currently available herbal repellents only work for a short time, Zhu noted.

According to Zhu, these compounds derived from coconut oil offer more lasting protection than any other known natural repellent against the insect blood supply.