Even the proteins in cells could be affected. Outside that range, neurons slow down and muscles and organs work less efficiently. To function properly, the human body needs to stay within a narrow temperature range spanning about three degrees Fahrenheit. There is even an ingestible thermometer pill, and each of these different types of thermometers come up with slightly different average temperatures.īy studying the temperatures of healthy people and what factors can push the body outside a safe range, researchers can develop a better understanding of the workings of the body as a whole.
Temperature is commonly measured inside the ear, under the tongue, in the armpit, rectally, or on the forehead. “We’ve been raised with that as the normal value since we were little.”Įvery person is different, and many factors can affect body temperature, including age, body type, activity, diet, disease, time of day, and how the temperature is measured. “Doctors are no different from anybody else,” says Julie Parsonnet, an infectious disease doctor at Stanford University. Yet 98.6 has endured as the magic number among concerned parents and doctors alike, displayed on everything from drugstore thermometers to medical centers’ webpages. But that number is wrong.īut for at least the past two decades, researchers have known that the average body temperature is actually colder, about 97.8 degrees Fahrenheit, and that a nywhere between 96.3 and 99.3 degrees Fahrenheit is within a normal range for the human body. For 150 years, 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit was thought to be the average body temperature for a healthy human being.
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