Most of the people don't realize it, but having a fever is actually a good thing. Whenever a person's body is suffering from an infection, a rise in temperature happens as chemicals, known as pyrogens, are produced to flow in the bloodstream. This is the body's reaction to the stimuli to kill certain viruses and bacteria, especially those that are sensitive to any change in temperature, as explained by How Stuff Works.
In a survey conducted by Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich, a German physician, 25,000 people were surveyed to get the normal rate of human body temperature in 1851. The results made the experts behind the study establish 37 degrees Celsius as that time's standard body temperature.
However, present researchers were able to observe how the temperature of a person has changed over time due to several factors. After studying and observing the temperature of about 35,000 people residing in the United Kingdom and over 250,000 gathered temperature rates, the researchers found the new average human body temperature is now 36.6 degrees Celsius.
In the study published in the journal entitled eLife, researchers shared the reason for the discrepancy of last years' human body normal temperature rate and of today's rate. The team pinpoints physiologic changes due to factors such as age, lifestyle habits, and ambient temperature.
Researchers were able to confirm this truth after analyzing information of three datasets: data gathered from the Union Army veterans of the Civil War between the years 1862 and 1930, data from the United States National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1 between 1971 and 1975, and the last dataset gathered from the Standford Translational Research Integrated Database Environment between 2007 and 2017. About 677,423 temperature rates were studied and integrated. Experts assume the same thermometers are used to gather all these rates.
The study resulted in several findings, which include the decrease of today's men and women's average temperature by 0.59 and 0.32 degrees Celsius respectively, and the decrease of the average human's body temperature of 0.03 degrees Celsius every decade. Though this study proved how human's body temperature is decreasing every time, experts believe it is still best to follow the old standard for human's normal body temperature, as revealed by Medical News Today.
"Physiologically, we're just different from what we were in the past," claims Dr. Julie Parsonnet, a professor of medicine, health research, and policy, and the senior author of the study. "The environment that we're living in has changed, including the temperature in our homes, our contact with microorganisms, and the food that we have access to", she added.
