Humans’ Body Temperatures Are Mysteriously Getting Colder, Study Finds

The average human body temperature has dropped over the past 150 years, according to a new study, though it remains unclear what is behind this decrease.

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have established that people’s bodies are now typically cooler than the textbook figure of 37C, first established by German physician Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich in 1868.

The study shows that modern-day men have a body temperature 0.58C lower than their 19th century counterparts, while women’s are 0.32C lower.

This decrease has been attributed to “changes in our environment over the past 200 years, which have in turn driven physiological changes”. However, the study acknowledges that establishing cause and effect remains “inherently unprovable”.

Senior author Julie Parsonnet, a professor of medicine and of health research and policy at Stanford University, says: “Our temperature is not what people think it is. (Read more from “Humans’ Body Temperatures Are Mysteriously Getting Colder, Study Finds” HERE)

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