How does our body temperature stay the same (if we’re not sick) even if we are in an especially warm or cold place? And when we are sick why does the temperature rising a couple degrees up or down make such a difference?
In: Biology
The body has ways of regulating temperature.
If it’s cold, the body restricts blood flow to arms and legs where there’s a lot of surface area for heat to escape. It can ramp up metabolism in order to just produce more internal heat. Shivering is your body spasming your muscles to generate heat.
The primary way of cooling down is sweating. When sweat evaporates from your body, it takes a bit of heat with it.
The reason we maintain the temperature is because the things our cells do keep us alive work best at this temperature. But, bacteria the get us sick also work best at this temperature. So changing the temperature can weaken the bacteria for immune system to kill. But this also messes with our own bodies which is why a fever feels so bad.
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