How will you react if you come to know that fever is actually good for us? Surprised right!!
Normally, when we have fever we would feel dull and uncomfortable. Truth is that fever increases our body`s defence mechanisms. Information is that low spectrum fever in the range between 99.1 degrees Fahrenheit to 102 degrees Fahrenheit would be good for us.
Various reasons why fever could be beneficial for us are
More production of WBC or white blood cells:
Our body would ramp up the production of white blood cells or WBC when we have fever. Point is that these WBCs attack pathogens like bacteria and viruses etc. It has been revealed that increased body temperature would stimulate bone marrow to produce more WBCs in us. This would increase the body`s ability to fight infections well. When there is more production of white blood cells in us, then we would have increased immunity and reduced severity of the illness.
Growth of bacteria and virus slow down:
When we have fever, a less favourable environment would be created in us for the bacteria and virus to grow. Our body temperature of 37 degrees Celsius is mostly preferred by many pathogens. The replication of these microorganisms would get slowed down due to increase in the body temperature. Our immune system would get more time to mount an effective defence when the growth of certain pathogens etc gets slowed down.
Enhancement in the antiviral and antibacterial activity:
The activity of certain immune cells would get enhanced when we have higher temperatures in us. The production of cytokines or proteins would be possible when we have fever. These proteins would regulate our immune responses. The activity of antiviral and antibacterial molecules inside the body would get increased by cytokines.
Cellular repair process would get better:
It is worthy to note that fever might also start cellular repair processes in us. Heat shock proteins would get stimulated when we have fever or higher temperatures and this would protect cells from stress. Damaged proteins would get repaired. It was brought to light by a research study that fever would ensure that the cells damaged by the infection would get repaired more effectively. By this, there would be speedy recovery from the fever.
Detoxification process:
The metabolic rate of the body would increase when we have fever. It must be taken into account that this metabolism boost would help in the detoxification process. There would be increased perspiration and toxins excretion etc due to higher metabolic rates. It has been revealed by research that sweating would eliminate certain toxins from the body. Point is that sweat due to fever would flush out harmful toxins from the body. This would improve our overall health.
Enhancement in immune memory:
For the long term protection against pathogens, our body`s immune memory must be enhanced and fever does this. It must be noted that immune memory is the ability of the immune system to remember previous encounters with specific pathogens and respond more effectively and speedily upon subsequent exposures. The important piece of information is that when we get fever then our immune system would be better prepared to defend against future infections. This would be due to the fact that the higher temperatures during fever would improve the formation of immune memory cells like T cells and B cells in us.