EPA Approves Natural Grapefruit Compound to Repel Ticks, Mosquitoes, and Other Bugs
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved nootkatone as a new active ingredient for insect repellents.
Research has shown that nootkatone, which gives grapefruit its distinct smell and taste, may repel and kill ticks, mosquitoes, and other bugs that bite humans and pets.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that repellents made with nootkatone may be available in stores by 2022.
Big news, bug haters: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved a new insect repellent. It’s called nootkatone, and it has a massive leg up on other insecticides: It’s safe enough to eat.
According to the agency, research has shown that nootkatone—which was discovered and developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—may repel and kill ticks, mosquitoes, and other bugs that like to bite. It can also “provide up to several hours of protection.”
Until now, the EPA had registered the following ingredients as skin-applied insect repellents:
Catnip oil
Oil of citronella
DEET
IR 3535
p-Methane-3,8-diol (pmd)
Oil of lemon eucalyptus
Picardin
2-undecanone
Adding a new insect repellent to the list is a pretty big deal. Here’s what you need to know about nootkatone, plus how it works.
What is nootkatone, exactly?
Nootkatone gives grapefruit its distinct smell and taste, and is “widely used” to make perfumes and colognes, the EPA says. It’s also found in “minute quantities” in Alaska yellow cedar trees.
Despite the recent EPA registration, nootkatone isn’t necessarily a brand new ingredient. It was a big topic of conversation during a meeting of the American Chemical Society back in 2013, where scientists praised the oil for its pleasant scent and flavor, and lack of toxicity concerns.
It’s also approved as a food additive and is classified as “generally considered safe” by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). “If you drink Fresca or Squirt, you’ve drunk nootkatone,” Ben Beard, Ph.D., deputy director of the division of vector-borne diseases at the CDC told The New York Times.
That said, it’s still probably best to take a pass on ingesting it when it’s marketed as an insecticide, says Jamie Alan, Ph.D., an assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Michigan State University.
How does nootkatone work?
Details on this are a little scarce. The FDA says that nootkatone kills biting pests “in a unique way, different from other insecticides already registered by the EPA, including pyrethroids, organophosphates, carbamates, and cyclodienes.”
Research published in the journal ACS Omega found that volunteers who stuck a hand coated in nootkatone into a container of hungry mosquitoes found that the substance had “good repellent activity” and “exceptional mosquitocidal effects at very low concentrations.” Not only did mosquitoes prefer to stay away from people wearing nootkatone, it also killed them.
The researchers wrote that the reason for this is unclear, but theorized that nootkatone may block receptors on the insects’ nerve cells for the neurotransmitter octopamine, making the insects hyperactive. “It causes fatal spasms,” Alan says.
Can you buy nootkatone?
Nootkatone isn’t available yet, but the EPA’s registration of the ingredient means that it can now be used to develop new insect repellents and insecticides. Evola, a licensed partner with the CDC, is in “advanced discussions” with top pest control companies for “possible commercial partnerships,” according to a press release. The CDC estimates that products made with nootkatone may be available in stores by 2022 (those will also have to be tested and registered by the EPA separately).
“It has great potential,” Alan says. “From the data so far, it seems like a good product, but time will tell.”
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