ELi5 if viruses cant survive in high temperatures, why do we try to lower our temperature when we have a fever?
In: 3
Part of the answer are proteins.
Imagine an egg, the egg white is pretty much pure protein.
Now what happens when you expose it to high levels of heat?
The proteins lose their initial liquid properties and are locked into an inflexible state.
Why am I talking about eggs? Well, humans/or animals in general and also pretty much any other lifeform on our planet use proteins for key functions in their cells. But they can only do their job if they are in the correct state (to continue our lil eggcercise: the boiled egg won’t be able to nourish a chick anymore since it’s now solid)
Now imagine your while body is an egg, and you’re slowly being boiled alive, cos that’s what a fever does. After a time your cells won’t be able to divide properly anymore, organ functions will become harder and harder to maintain, because proteins, that are essential to keeping you going can’t be produced or maintained long enough to do their job.
As for why we have fevers then? The bacteria also runs on proteins and hopeful meets their end faster than we do in this little race to the death.
I know this isn’t entirely accurate, but feel free to point out any obvious flaws
Edit: OMFG I completely forgot the question was about a virus so I’m talking about bacteria. But the same basic idea of proteins applies. The big difference is that a virus is not alive and needs a cell host’s “cell division machinery” to multiply, but this chain is also broken, since you guessed it, proteins are also used in the cell division process.
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