- #1
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Decades ago I read a Scientific American article probably based on this article:
"The actions of interferon are potentiated at elevated temperature"
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v274/n5670/abs/274508a0.html
It's a study from 1978 that compared some of the activities of interferon at 37 and 39 C (98.6 and 102.2 F).
It made sense to me. You would think that mammals running fevers would have been worked out over 200 million years ago with plenty of time for fine tuning since. And when I tried it, it pretty much seemed to work. If I felt chilly and thought a fever was coming on, take my temperature, I put on a jacket, raise the room temperature, and snuggle up in bed. My temperature would peak a bit over 104 and in less than 4 hours total, the fever would break.
I noted about 15 years ago that nurses were still cooling down adult fevers - and then was surprised when a nurse on "60 Minutes" last night described cooling off Mr Dunkin's fever, the Ebola victim.
So what's going on? Does it really make any sense to cool a building fever?
"The actions of interferon are potentiated at elevated temperature"
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v274/n5670/abs/274508a0.html
It's a study from 1978 that compared some of the activities of interferon at 37 and 39 C (98.6 and 102.2 F).
It made sense to me. You would think that mammals running fevers would have been worked out over 200 million years ago with plenty of time for fine tuning since. And when I tried it, it pretty much seemed to work. If I felt chilly and thought a fever was coming on, take my temperature, I put on a jacket, raise the room temperature, and snuggle up in bed. My temperature would peak a bit over 104 and in less than 4 hours total, the fever would break.
I noted about 15 years ago that nurses were still cooling down adult fevers - and then was surprised when a nurse on "60 Minutes" last night described cooling off Mr Dunkin's fever, the Ebola victim.
So what's going on? Does it really make any sense to cool a building fever?