Decreasing human body temperature in the United States since the industrial revolution

In the US, the normal, oral temperature of adults is, on average, lower than the canonical 37 °C established in the 19th century. We postulated that body temperature has decreased over time. Using measurements from three cohorts--the Union Army Veterans of the Civil War (N = 23,710; measurement years 1860 –1940), the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey I (N = 15,301; 1971–1975), and the Stanford Translational Research Integrated Database Environment (N = 150,280; 2007–2017)--we determined that mean body temperature in men and women, after adjusting for age, height, weight and, in s ome models date and time of day, has decreased monotonically by 0.03°C per birth decade. A similar decline within the Union Army cohort as between cohorts, makes measurement error an unlikely explanation. This substantive and continuing shift in body temperature—a marker for metabolic rate—prov ides a framework for understanding changes in human health and longevity over 157 years.
Source: eLife - Category: Biomedical Science Tags: Human Biology and Medicine Source Type: research