Bolivia's Tsimane people's average body temperature fell half a degree in 16 years

[Judi Lynn]

Bolivia’s Tsimane people’s average body temperature fell half a degree in 16 years
A new study adds to evidence that 37° Celsius, or 98.6° Fahrenheit, is no longer the norm



Members of an Indigenous Bolivian group known as the Tsimane travel along the Maniqui River in a dugout canoe.

M. GURVEN

By Sujata Gupta

17 HOURS AGO

Indigenous Bolivian Amazon dwellers are helping to bolster recent findings that normal body temperature, around 37° Celsius, or 98.6° Fahrenheit, might not be so normal anymore.

The horticulturist-forager Tsimane people in the South American nation have experienced a half-degree drop, on average, in body temperatures over a decade and a half, anthropologist Michael Gurven and colleagues report October 28 in Science Advances.

The new finding echoes the half-degree drop in average body temperature reported earlier this year in a Stanford University study of three U.S. population cohorts over 157 years. In that research, normal body temperature fell by 0.03° C per decade.

Body temperature serves as a sort of surrogate for basal metabolic rate, or the number of calories required to keep the body working while at rest. Higher rates have been linked to shorter life spans and lower body mass. Body temperature — which also reflects circadian rhythms, immune function, the presence or absence of disease as well as ambient temperature — is affected by age, sex and time of day (SN: 10/2/17).

More:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/bolivia-indigenous-tsimane-people-average-body-temperature

Also posted in Science:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/122872569

[mahina]

1. Mine is 96

Never as high as 97 unless I’m ill.

[BComplex]

2. Mine is usually 97.4 or 5

I think it's happening globally. People's bodies are changing.

[sinkingfeeling]

5. Me too.

[Nay]

6. Yeah --- if I'm at 98.6, I've got a one-degree fever. nt

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. Decades ago I learned that 98.6 was actually a tiny

mild fever.

Me, I usually run around 97 degrees, sometimes less.

I honestly wonder if a slightly lower body temperature isn't a good thing. I've always had a low body temperature, and I'm the healthiest person I know. Although I haven't been comparing my temp to anyone else's, so who knows?

[applegrove]

4. Sanjay Gupta visited with indigenous people in the Amazon. They had

low rates of heart disease because they all had parasites and their immune cells and system were busy fighting the parasites instead of the body itself. When the people moved to the towns and started on a more 'civilized' diet their incidents of heart disease grew. Maybe the higher body temp means more infection or parasites to fight off?

[zipplewrath]

7. Fahrenheit

When the Fahrenheit scale was created, supposedly 100 F was set as body temperature. It is hypothesized that this inaccuracy was due to the English having consistent and long term infections due to poor hygiene.