The Perfect
Number for Health
by Michael Smith PhD MD Sc
98.6
º
Have you checked your temperature lately?
If you are frequently cold, cannot tolerate drafts or air conditioning,
you may suffer from hypothermia (low temperature). This article will
explain why maintaining homeothermia is absolutely critical to your
health.
H
omeothermia means constant temperature.
For much of life all mammals and birds perform
at a constant temperature; for mammals this is
98.6°F and for birds this temperature is about
102°F. The exception is hibernation, the slowing of
physiological function and the drastic lowering of body
temperature during deep sleep. Hibernation is quite
routine during winter for many rodents and bears, and
nightly for birds like our Arizona hummingbirds. The
underlying reason for this is not the drop of outside
temperature during winter but the lack of food. The
exception for bears proves the point: tropical bears do
not hibernate, neither do many polar bears. As long as
the polar bear can find a seal to eat, it remains outdoors
and the body temperature runs at about 98.6°F.
At the moment it seems
impossible for humans to
hibernate.
Irreversible
cell
damage occurs if the human
temperature is lowered below
about 88°F for any length of
time, factoring in a subject’s
health, age and monitoring.
There is universal agreement that humans were
meant to function at 98.6°F and deviation from this
is always serious.
One reason is that neurons are extremely dependent upon
a constant supply of nutrients and begin to malfunction if
this supply is even slowed down. Another reason is that
many enzymes of all cells have very temperaturesensitive properties. The catalytic abilities of many
enzymes are drastically altered or even quenched
entirely if the cell temperature is lowered by even a few
degrees. Stop an enzyme and the cell eventually dies.
8 Fibromyalgia & Chronic Pain
Life
Winter 2014
In addition, critical components of each cell are thousand
of proteins made by translation from DNA and RNA, which
need to stay hydrated to keep cells alive. Protein hydration
is highly temperature dependent. Many proteins become
insoluble (clump up) as the temperature is raised. Once
these proteins clump up, they cannot function and the
cell dies. Without homeothermia, the very elemental form of all
systems in the mammalian body–neurons, organs, tissues, and so
forth–are adversely threatened.
Body heat is generated by three primary methods:
mechanical, electrical and chemical.
The four major organs generating
body heat are the brain (electrical),
heart (mechanical), liver (chemical),
and kidneys (chemical and electrical).
MECHANICAL. The first method
is mechanical friction. As you move
your joints and muscles, you create
heat. Even with our wonderfully lubricated
shoulders, knees and hips we create a fair amount of heat
during motion.
Another friction pathway is the heat liberated as
our muscle fibers slide across each other during
contraction and relaxation. If we are out in the cold
without protection we use this process to heat up
by shivering. This is simply high frequency, small
muscle contractions and relaxations. W hile capable
of liberating an enormous amount of heat, shivering
is tiresome and cannot be maintained for long.
Another process for mechanical heat liberation is
blood circulation. The heart liberates an enormous
amount of heat during pumping and red blood cells,
sub cells and plasma liberate heat as these slide
around the capillaries.