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If Fever Helps Fight Infection, Should I Avoid Fever-Reducing Drugs? (2018)

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Re: If Fever Helps Fight Infection, Should I Avoid Fever-Reducing Drugs? (2018)

#31

Post by [deleted] »

jjk166 wrote: post #30
pfannkuchen wrote: post #15

Is it possible that fever is a legacy feature? Like I would expect microbes specialized to the human/mammalian system environment to be able to deal with the relatively small temperature range of fevers. The selection pressure of fever is pretty well-suited to microbial evolution. It's very incremental, and microbes are known to live in a wide variety of temperatures. It seems much easier to get around than antibioti…

Also worth considering natural selection only cares about your genes being passed on, not about your survival. A fever response might be a good way to clear an infection when you're 20 and have yet to pass on your genes, but bad after 50 when evolution expects your grandkids to be able to take care of themselves. It's even possible that an excessive fever that kills you fast and takes the deadly disease along with it…

[deleted]

Re: If Fever Helps Fight Infection, Should I Avoid Fever-Reducing Drugs? (2018)

#33

Post by pfannkuchen »

jjk166 wrote: post #30
pfannkuchen wrote: post #15

Is it possible that fever is a legacy feature? Like I would expect microbes specialized to the human/mammalian system environment to be able to deal with the relatively small temperature range of fevers. The selection pressure of fever is pretty well-suited to microbial evolution. It's very incremental, and microbes are known to live in a wide variety of temperatures. It seems much easier to get around than antibioti…

Also worth considering natural selection only cares about your genes being passed on, not about your survival. A fever response might be a good way to clear an infection when you're 20 and have yet to pass on your genes, but bad after 50 when evolution expects your grandkids to be able to take care of themselves. It's even possible that an excessive fever that kills you fast and takes the deadly disease along with it…

Ha, that’s interesting. We could look at whether more solitary mammals have less of a fever response. The feature isn’t guaranteed to fall off, of course, but if it did that would be good evidence for this theory.

EDIT On the former though I think we’d expect babies to be able to tolerate fever well and they really don’t.

Re: If Fever Helps Fight Infection, Should I Avoid Fever-Reducing Drugs? (2018)

#34

Post by bobthepanda »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #33
jjk166 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also worth considering natural selection only cares about your genes being passed on, not about your survival. A fever response might be a good way to clear an infection when you're 20 and have yet to pass on your genes, but bad after 50 when evolution expects your grandkids to be able to take care of themselves. It's even possible that an excessive fever that kills you fast and takes the deadly disease along with it…

Ha, that’s interesting. We could look at whether more solitary mammals have less of a fever response. The feature isn’t guaranteed to fall off, of course, but if it did that would be good evidence for this theory. EDIT On the former though I think we’d expect babies to be able to tolerate fever well and they really don’t.

family sizes used to be much larger so evolution was not necessarily predicated on having every child survive, just an average of more than 2.1.

Re: If Fever Helps Fight Infection, Should I Avoid Fever-Reducing Drugs? (2018)

#35

Post by jjk166 »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #33
jjk166 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also worth considering natural selection only cares about your genes being passed on, not about your survival. A fever response might be a good way to clear an infection when you're 20 and have yet to pass on your genes, but bad after 50 when evolution expects your grandkids to be able to take care of themselves. It's even possible that an excessive fever that kills you fast and takes the deadly disease along with it…

Ha, that’s interesting. We could look at whether more solitary mammals have less of a fever response. The feature isn’t guaranteed to fall off, of course, but if it did that would be good evidence for this theory. EDIT On the former though I think we’d expect babies to be able to tolerate fever well and they really don’t.

Babies are deliberately fragile - if there is an issue evolution wants to nip it in the bud early rather than wasting years of resources raising someone who is ultimately not going to reach adulthood anyways. This is part of the reason that mortality in the first year is over 14 times higher than in the second year, even in the developed world with modern medical practices.

Evolution doesn't care about babies, they are easily replaceable. Evolution doesn't care about the elderly, they have served their purpose. The most important thing is to keep people in their late teens to early thirties alive at all costs as these are the ones statistically most likely to successfully produce and raise offspring. It is no coincidence that this is also the age where people reach peak physical condition. Nature is brutal, but efficient.

Re: If Fever Helps Fight Infection, Should I Avoid Fever-Reducing Drugs? (2018)

#36

Post by NoPicklez »

If you have mild fever symptoms and you are able to take the time to rest and recover no. But if your fever has lasted for a prolonged period of time and you are unable to take the time to rest, then you may consider taking them.

There is a similar argument for inflammation, if you have a sporting injury or you have worked out and your muscles are sore, should you be taking anti-inflammation drugs or using massage guns which reduce inflammation, when inflammation is your bodies response to rebuild itself. By taking them you are reducing your bodies ability to repair itself, however you may experience less pain and discomfort as a result.

Re: If Fever Helps Fight Infection, Should I Avoid Fever-Reducing Drugs? (2018)

#39

Post by teyc »

bobthepanda wrote: post #19

Fever is very interesting. What’s also interesting is that we still have no idea about the mechanism by which acetominophen/paracetamol actually works despite studying it for 150y. https://medicine.tufts.edu/news-events/news/how-does-acetami...

Affects mitochondrial function https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1867647/

Re: If Fever Helps Fight Infection, Should I Avoid Fever-Reducing Drugs? (2018)

#40

Post by bamboozled »

vundercind wrote: post #12
bamboozled wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I usually only use them when I can’t rest due to pain or discomfort. I’m going to bet the resting is more important than the not resting with a fever. But I’d love to know the scientific answer too.

I’m pretty much certain that 8-9hrs of sleep per night with a fever reducer and/or decongestant and a little bit of weed is gonna get me better faster than no drugs and getting three or fewer hours of sleep multiple nights in a row. When illnesses get really bad for me it’s usually because they’ve only let me sleep like five total hours in three nights or something like that, due to fever chills or lots of snot and a…

If you have kids, welcome to 5 hours a night for 2 years!
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