Why is our body temperature always around 98 degrees, and why is it dangerous when it goes even slightly above or below that number?
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It’s not dangerous to go slightly above or below. In fact, it’s entire normal and your body temperature will fluctuate over the course of the day.
It’s dangerous if it goes a lot above or below. The reason going too far above or below kills you is that our body’s systems have evolved to work within a certain range of temperatures. Too far above or below means that they can’t function and you die.
However, you’re probably aware of a fever. Your body does that “on purpose” when it’s fighting an infection because the immune system works better at a slightly higher temperature than its normal range.
Our body works hard to maintain the body temperature at the correct temperature. If your body temperature drops then a lot of the chemical reactions in your body slows down and your body is no longer able to operate how it is supposed to. If your body temperature gets too high then certain protein start coagulating which makes them stop working. Especially the neural network do not handle this well. The actual temperature range your body can handle are a bit wider then you suggest with people surviving body temperatures up to 105 and down to 50. However if the body differs from its normal 98-99 degrees it is because it is unable to keep the body temperature and you should therefore make efforts to fix whatever is causing it to change.
There are many thousands of chemical reactions that need to take place in our bodies constantly for us to be alive. That temperature is the ideal range where these reactions can take place. If our body temperature gets too high or too low, these chemical reactions don’t happen, don’t happen fast enough, or don’t happen correctly, and that leads to death eventually. It’s important to note that 37 Celsius (98.6 Fahrenheit) is just an average. Normal body temperatures can be a few degrees above or below that, and in fact, our body temperatures fluctuate by several degrees over the course of a day, so it’s not dangerous to go even slightly above or below that number, it’s only dangerous if it goes too far above or below the range of temperatures that is considered normal.
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