A mild fever is good for your health

November 14th, 2006

At some point or the other we all go down with a spell of mild fever. New research indicates that mild fever is in fact is a good sign of health rather than one that calls for a quick dose of paracetamol.

Scientists at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, US, have come to a conclusion that mild fever actually disrupts the ability of viruses that thrive at body temperature to multiply.

According to the researchers fever actually accelerates your “body’s surveillance process, identifying and eradicating an infection.” It helps your body’s immune system to increase the number of WBCs, the white blood corpuscles. WBCs, being part of our immune system, put up a defense against disease-causing pathogens like viruses.

The team of scientists was investigating how fever affects the movement of WBCs from your blood stream to lymphoid tissue, where they recognise and fight infection.

The researchers see wide implications of their finding. They hope that fever-based therapies could be fine-tuned to improve existing treatment systems for infections, auto-immune diseases and cancer.

Professor of Medicine at New Delhi based All India Institute of Medical Sciences Randeep Guleria says that even at present patients with fever upto 100 deg F are not advised to take antibiotics or even paracetamol.

Fatigue too causes fever. According to Guleria, the patients at best should have salt and lemon dissolved in water for sodium and potassium. Only when the fever does not subside over 5-7 days and is accompanied by symptoms like body ache and sore throat, should the patient go for a check-up, he advises.

Here I would like to share the finding of yet another doctor, who is attached with our continuing research on the effect of yoga on our body. Accordingly, the breathing exercises, called pranayama prescribed in the system of yoga, actually lead to an increase in the number of WBCs besides improving the quality of various essential fluid systems –including blood- of our body.

So next time you have mild fever, please do not rush for paracetamol or an antibiotic. Just feel happy about it.

It might also be advisable to practise yoga to improve your immunity against possible infections and stay healthy.

Entry Filed under: Health Issues