Why does body temperature rise when we are sick?
Each and every one of us might have experienced fever and sickness in our lives. We all know that our body temperature rises when we are suffering from fever, as it is the most common symptom associated with it. The normal temperature of our body is around 37 degrees centigrade and anything above that is a cause for concern and it is categorized as fever. Many infectious agents like bacteria or other unwanted things, when they break through our body’s defenses and enter it, become a cause for fever. Our body’s immune system then starts fighting them with the help of antibodies and tries to neutralize the harmful impact of the agents. In this natural biological process of producing more and more antibodies to defend against the intrusion, the temperature of our body increases. Our body produces chemicals called pyrogens during this process which signals the hypothalamus in our brain to increase the temperature of our body and also to speed up the production of antibodies. Hypothalamus is the part of the brain which controls the body temperature.
The rise of temperature of our body simply delivers the message that something is wrong somewhere. In actual sense, the body increases its temperature to such a level where the infection–bacteria or viral—is unable to sustain itself and gets defeated by the antibodies easily. But a very high body temperature can have many serious side effects like shivering, highly increased or decreased heart rate etc. and in extreme cases even death. A body temperature of around 42 degrees centigrade is considered very dangerous and can even cause death. The rise in body temperature is beneficial up to an extent for our body’s immune system, but it should be controlled through proper medication if it crosses a certain level. Fever, in itself, is not a disease as it tells us that something is not right in our body and needs to be taken care of, until and unless the fever itself goes out of control.
