Title: The Average Human Body Temperature Is No Longer 98.6 F | by Robert Roy Britt | Elemental
Headings: The Average Human Body Temperature Is No Longer 98.6 F
The Average Human Body Temperature Is No Longer 98.6 F
We’re all chilling out, new research shows
Why the decline?

Content: Metabolic rate and body temperature vary based on a host of factors, including gender, diet, fitness, and time of day as well as extreme environmental conditions or with illness and fever. To a lesser extent, air conditioning and central heating may have forced some human evolution, the researchers say. The body doesn’t have to expend as much energy in its effort to maintain a constant body temperature, allowing it to run at a lower metabolic rate. “ It may be that our cushy lives, always at temperatures between 64 and 72, play a role,” Parsonnet says. It’s also “not impossible” that our increasingly sedentary lives have some effect, she says, given that generations past were busy farming, chopping wood, and otherwise struggling to survive day to day, and now the masses plop into office chairs for hours on end, followed by hours on the couch, with motorized transportation to and fro. “Physiologically, we’re just different from what we were in the past,” Parsonnet says. It’s not known whether the decline will continue, but Parsonnet suspects it may taper off as the decadeslong increase in life expectancy levels off. She also can’t say if the lower body temperature is having any follow-up effects. “ The first step in figuring it out is knowing that it happened,” she says. “ That’s where we are now.