Salt Lake City – Head lice – those nasty nuisances for schoolchildren and parents – were blown away in half an hour by a new blow-dryer-like device its inventors call the “LouseBuster,” university researchers report.
The device, which kills bugs and eggs by drying them out, might offer an alternative to the powerful delousing shampoos and literal nit-picking currently needed for dealing with this widespread problem.
The LouseBuster results were reported in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics by University of Utah researchers who said the device eliminates infestations by preventing reproduction.
The study, involving 169 children in the Salt Lake area, showed the LouseBuster killed 80 percent of hatched lice and 98 percent of eggs on infested children. Enough bugs were killed to prevent remaining lice from breeding, so “virtually all subjects were cured of head lice when examined one week following treatment with the Louse Buster,” the scientists wrote.
“The idea would be that instead of sending kids home from school, which is a hardship on kids and the parents, a kid might be able to go to the front office and get treated” and return to class, said biologist Dale Clayton, co-inventor and leader of the research.
The appliance works by blowing twice as much air as a typical blow dryer, he said.
Clayton studies birds and lice, but after moving to Salt Lake City from England in 1996, he found the air was too dry to keep lice alive on laboratory birds. He had to humidify rooms to keep the bugs alive.
If dry air could kill lice on birds, Clayton reasoned, it might do the same on humans. He found temperature wasn’t as important as the amount of air. The air in his device is cooler than that expelled by a standard hair dryer.
Larada Sciences, a University of Utah company set to market the LouseBuster to schools and doctors, says the device could be available within two years.
