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Time to redefine normal body temperature? (2020)

health.harvard.edu

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Re: Time to redefine normal body temperature? (2020)

#81

Post by chanc3e »

sideshowb wrote: post #79
joecool1029 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Mercury is dangerous as hell but if it wasn't for gallium alloy ones I'd smuggle them in the country. It's elemental mercury encapsulated in glass not one of the organic compounds that cause all the acute and longterm health issues. Chlorine bleach is scarier stuff used in the household.

What should we know about bleach?

For one, not to mix it with vinegar. Chlorine gas.

There was a spate of TikTok's recommending mixing them for cleaning purposes. To the horror of many.

Re: Time to redefine normal body temperature? (2020)

#82

Post by thaumasiotes »

halper wrote: post #50
thaumasiotes wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A hot day is around 37c (+/- 10) Absolutely not. 47C is an emergency, not "hot".

Ah, memories of quiet summer days in Western Australia! No emergencies as far as the eye can see. The wind feels like a hair dryer in the face. Ah yes, a summer day in the sticks.

You know, there might be a reason the population density in Western Australia is reportedly 1 person per square kilometer.

Or as Population Australia put it:

> The state’s capital city is Perth. Perth has an estimated population of over 2.7 million people.

> Western Australia is Australia’s largest state. Its total area is 2,529,875 km² which accounts for 33 percent of Australia’s total land mass.

> Based on our research Western Australia population will reach 2.879 million by the end of June of 2023.

Most of Western Australia, of course, is not Perth. The density outside of Perth is... 0.2 people per square kilometer, using poorly-defined and chronologically mismatched statistics from the wikipedia sidebars. Perth has 80%+ of the people of Western Australia in 0.24% of the space. If we believe Population Australia about the size of Perth, it has more than 97% of the population of Western Australia in 0.3% of the space.

I feel strangely comfortable characterizing temperatures that prevent humans from living in a region as "emergency" temperatures.

Re: Time to redefine normal body temperature? (2020)

#83

Post by iopq »

kyriakos wrote: post #35
iopq wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's a conversion of 37C which is stupid since 37C is when I have a fever already

37 may or may not be a fever depending on your activity. If you went running your body temperature will be above 37 but you'll feel perfectly normal. When you got 37 and it's a fever it feels different.

Obviously, I'm talking about waking temperature, if I wake up at 37C I have a fever since my normal is 36.5-36.6

Re: Time to redefine normal body temperature? (2020)

#84

Post by [deleted] »

Jakob wrote: post #19
ncallaway wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the same, so I tried to find Wunderlich. The only source I could find ( https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/3-wHAAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gb... ) seems to have Wunderlich reporting "98.6F", and then converting to Celsius: > The average normal temperature of the healthy human body in its interior, or in carefully covered situations on its surface, varies, according to the plan of measurement from 98.6° to 99.5° Fahr…

That is a translation artifact. The German original cites 37-37.5 degrees Celsius on average: https://archive.org/details/dasverhaltender00wundgoog/page/n...

[deleted]

Re: Time to redefine normal body temperature? (2020)

#86

Post by denton-scratch »

asats wrote: post #4

Not sure if it's all the countries, but I have always heard the normal body temperature in Celsius stated as 36.5, which is 97.7 F. Is 98.6 an american-only thing?

Brit here; I was taught that 98.4F is "normal". Clearly I'm abnormal; my own temp is nearly always higher.

Re: Time to redefine normal body temperature? (2020)

#87

Post by denton-scratch »

mateo1 wrote: post #53
kyriakos wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

37 may or may not be a fever depending on your activity. If you went running your body temperature will be above 37 but you'll feel perfectly normal. When you got 37 and it's a fever it feels different.

Knowing that my resting body temp was permanently 36.8-36.9 while everyone elses (on the same thermometer) was 36.6 was one of the things that led me realise something was wrong and in fact it turned out I had an autoimmune. Of course the temperature fluctuates with activity and with the time of the day but an auxiliary reading of 36.6 has been what I've always observed for myself and others. After all we all run the…

My thermometer is a cook's infrared no-contact instant-read thermometer (I also own a digital under-tongue thermometer, but I no longer use it). The cook's thermometer is more accurate.

Re: Time to redefine normal body temperature? (2020)

#88

Post by Broken_Hippo »

mise_en_place wrote: post #60
kqr wrote: post #52

The whole enterprise of trying to find "a normal" temperature seems silly to me, increasingly after getting two kids with fevers every now and then. We use both high-quality ear canal and anal thermometers, and while we have enough statistical grounds to unbias their results compared to each other, there remains significant variance. I.e. if we use an anal or ear canal thermometer makes temperature vary ±0.4 °C. Then…

Anecdotal, but my family has a history of autoimmune disease (including multiple myeloma in my father’s case). My temp is always slightly higher than what is considered normal. It could be due to how my immune system tends to be overactive, many doctors have claimed it is caused by having “connective tissue disease”. Never had any adverse health problems from it.

Just to push back at the anecdote, another anecdote: I personally have an autoimmune disease (MS, in particular, with overactive immune system) and my body temperature has run low for most of my life.

Re: Time to redefine normal body temperature? (2020)

#89

Post by Analogbullfrog »

nano9 wrote: post #38

> [One key possibility] ... Lower metabolic rate: One of the biggest determinants of body temperature is your metabolic rate. Like a car engine that’s idling, your body expends energy just keeping things going, and that generates heat. A lower metabolic rate in modern times could be due to higher body mass (some studies link this with lower metabolic rate), or better medical treatments, preventive measures, and overa…

That’s an interesting idea, although overweight people actually have faster metabolisms by virtue of being bigger.

Re: Time to redefine normal body temperature? (2020)

#90

Post by ls15 »

ghshephard wrote: post #12

As someone who has always been 96.5/35.8 - I will say that having a higher body temperature being the standard works out well when you come running in flushed to your check-in gate at the airport, and they take your body temperature (Covid thing) - and you still come in well under the acceptable range.

During the pandemic, some shopping centers in my area started to measure wrist temperatures. Once, my wrist was still cold from winter temperatures outside:

"28.5, ok, next"

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