Believe it or not, cinnamon has been found to have some amazing household uses. Further to my post last week, “The Healing Power of Cinnamon” which discussed the health benefits of Cinnamon, a study shows the power of Cinnamon Oil in combating dangerous pests like mosquitoes, fleas, and ticks. In fact, cinnamon oil was found to be more effective than DEET in killing mosquito larvae.
The study was conducted by Peter Shang-Tzen Chang, a professor in the School of Forestry and Resource Conservation at National Taiwan University. Details about the study can be found here.
To summarise the findings, the scientists explained that an “LC50 value” is defined as the concentration that kills 50% of mosquito larvae in 24 hours. So the lower the LCD value, the higher the concentration and thus the more effective it is.
- Cinnamon has an LC50 value of 29 ppm
- DEET has an LC50 value of 50 ppm
Thus, cinnamon’s lower value makes it a more effective killer of mosquito larvae.
An article was published in July, 2004 in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry which made a formal recommendation to use cinnamon oil to repel insects.
While this study focused on mosquito larvae, researchers are hopeful that cinnamon oil can act as a repellent to adult mosquitoes and they plan to test their theory in the near future.
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