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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)

#71

Post by lynx23 »

tasuki wrote: post #68
FullMetalBitch wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, 36-37 normal, over 37 fever.

Same here, but I've since readjusted :) Currently the top comment says "Basically, in our experience, anything below 38.4 °C could just as well be caused by any of a number of non-fever conditions at something like a 90 % confidence level" ... which is panicky territory for me. But anything under 38 is fine.

Well, if I have anything above 37.5C, I definitely feel ill. If you call that fever, or something else, feels hypocritical to me. Luckily, this stuff is a continuum. Still remember the 40.6C as a child, as my sense of equilibrium completely went bonkers and I start to hallucinate.

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

#72

Post by AstralStorm »

joecool1029 wrote: post #57
mateo1 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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.

The thing about mercury is that it accumulates, but chlorine does not.

Mercury is mostly banned for being persistent pollutant, next after lead. There is no real safe level of mercury intake due to cumulative damage and hard for body to get rid of.

There is a safe, heck, required level of chlorine intake. (What is table salt?)

Mercury is not any superior at measuring temperature over a resistive electronic or a bimetallic thermometer, or alcohol capillary one. (Except the latter boils and freezes too easily, not a problem for body temperature.)

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

#73

Post by kqr »

aleken wrote: post #64
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…

I applaud your accuracy when measuring your kids' temperature. My approach when figuring out if my kids are sick is if their temperature is "high" and their general appearance and conditition is out of the ordinary. The exact decimal of the temperature doesn't matter too much by itself.

We didn't always care to this accuracy. We just used the anal temperature and went on with our day. Then we got the ear canal thermometer for convenience and discovered that the result was not what we expected, so I got curious and started keeping detailed records...

But in the end, I want to get to the point where you are, using a rough rule of thumb. I'm just taking the evidence-based route there!

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

#74

Post by pmontra »

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…

Anecdotally, after measuring my armpit temperature a number of times in recent years due to checks for covid, I'm close to 36 C or even lower than that. In all my adult life I could deal with anything lower than 38 C without drugs. I would stay warm, rest, sleep on it and be good the next day. I start worrying if it gets past 38.

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

#75

Post by ginko »

lynx23 wrote: post #26
avalys wrote: post #3

As the article says, Wunderlich reached a conclusion of 37C in the 1800s, and that’s what we’ve used since then. The real problem appears to be that converting to Fahrenheit and reporting this as “98.6F” suggests an order of magnitude more precision than “37C”. 36.5C would still round to 37 but corresponds to 97.7F.

I have always been taught that 37C is the upper limit, actually bordering on fever. So 36.5C or even a bit lower was always considered healthy and fine.

I've been taught [37,38) is raised temperature/light fever and >=38 is a serious fever.

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

#76

Post by lynx23 »

gpvos wrote: post #69
lynx23 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have always been taught that 37C is the upper limit, actually bordering on fever. So 36.5C or even a bit lower was always considered healthy and fine.

I was brought up with everything under 38 being subfebrile (Dutch "verhoging") which means to watch out, but no need to call the doctor yet.

I wouldn't call a doctor as long as I am below 40C, but thats maybe just me not wanting to uselessly overload the system... Other people seem to have different attitudes. Come to think of it, our local media just had an article saying doctors are asking patients to not come to the doctors office just because they have a little fever. A similar thing seems to happen in children ambulances. Doctors tell me that 90% of the cases there are just clogging the system and making it harder to find the 10% which really need immediate help.

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

#77

Post by beagle3 »

silisili wrote: post #66
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…

This is what I came to say. When I was a teen my body ran hot, so hot people used to even comment at times it felt like I had heat coming off me. My normal temps were in the low 99. Now, as an adult, my metabolism nosedived. I barely feel like eating once a day. It's not abnormal to get temps in the 96s, though that could just be the cheap covid thermometers.

I'm in my late 40s, people around me still comment that I'm radiating heat (and have commented that for at least 30 years), and I almost always feel too hot - used to walk with a short sleeve shirt in the dead of snowy winter when I lived in NYC.

But my temperature when measured is consistently below 36 celsius, often 35.

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

#78

Post by Moru »

WA wrote: post #58

Women with natural menstrual cycles have a 0.2-0.5 °C higher body temperature after their ovulation because of the higher progesterone level in their blood. They literally don’t have a single "correct" body temperature. It’s not mentioned in the article, which I find odd, because it tells you something about averaging statistics and male body bias in science.

A lot of it is chosen male because female body is more complicated in some ways. We are just figuring things out with statistics and some things will be wrong if we cut out 50% of the population.

Sience is starting to wake up to this though, but slowly.

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

#79

Post by sideshowb »

joecool1029 wrote: post #57
mateo1 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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?

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

#80

Post by peoplefromibiza »

riffraff wrote: post #56
kolinko wrote: post #9

In Poland normal has always been considered 36.6C, which is 97.9F, which the article states as a proposed new normal.

Same in Italy. 36-36.6 is considered normal, 37 is considered a mild alteration (or life threatening disease if you're a man).

that's for a very specific reason: improved accuracy.

Let me explain: measurements were usually taken externally from armpits, using analog mercury thermometers, which results in temperatures lower than the actual one by ~0.5 degrees Celsius.

If you read the instruction manual of modern digital thermometers, that are more accurate, it states that

  Oral
  Time: ~55 seconds
  Typical temperature interval: 35,5~37,5 °C

  Anal
  Time: ~45 seconds
  Typical temperature interval: 36,6~38 °C

  Armpit
  Time: ~70 seconds
  Typical temperature interval: 34,7~37,3 °C
An example (PDF / Italian)

https://www.doctorpoint.it/images/deplian/docp-pdf10956.pdf

The science has always been sound, even in Italy.

My parents worked in healthcare, I never had the chance to skip school unless the thermometers said > 37.5 °C and after a double check with both palms on my forehead because I warmed it more than once on the radiator.

The problem is Italian paranoid moms, especially from the South, believing in spooky superstitions.

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