Hitherto, the average human body temperature has been considered 37 °C, with a range between 36.5 and 37.5 °C, as the norm for human body temperature. The average body temperature of people across the planet is dropping. Scientists do not yet know why.
Human Body Temperature Is Dropping
The average body temperature was determined in 1868 by the German physician Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich. He also found that there are differences in the body temperature of women and men. And that the temperature of the human body fluctuates during the day – the lowest is in the morning, the highest around 6 PM.
Dr. Wunderlich’s measurements have been valid for more than 150 years. However, researchers have now found that the average human temperature has dropped by half a degree – reducing the average to 36.5 ° C.
Several scientific studies claim that the temperature of the human body on the planet is dropping. A recent study of more than 35,000 patients in the UK reached an average temperature of 36.6 ° C. Another study found that in the United States, the average human temperature has dropped by about 0.02 ° C in a decade since the 1960s.
The Fastest Drop in Body Temperature Measured in the Amazon Tribe
But the drop in people’s temperature is not the same everywhere. The “Tsimane Health and Life History” project has been running in the Bolivian Amazon since 2001, which closely monitors the health of the Tsimane hunter-gatherer tribe. According to the recently published results, their average body temperature has been declining at a rate of 0.05 ° C per year since the beginning of the project.
The reasons for this decline are not clear either in the Tsiman tribe or elsewhere in the world. Apparently, it is not directly related to health and condition.
According to scientists, improved medical care can may the reason, thanks to which some infections last for a shorter time. Another possibility is that the human body today does not have to regulate the temperature so intensely due to better clothing and air conditioning.
Source: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/the-average-human-body-temperature-is-dropping-and-its-not-clear-why/, featured photo by kalhh z Pixabay.
