February 18, 2020: For generations, Americans have been taught that the average human body temperature was 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. That was the standard used to determine if someone had a fever. However, a new study from Stanford University says that the 21st-century average is a full degree lower at 97.5.[1]
The original baseline of 98.6 came from an 1869 study by a German scientist, Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich. Since then, however, a significant number of modern studies have suggested that number is too high. As a result, some believe that Wunderlich’s original research was flawed.
However, the new Stanford study suggests a different explanation. One part of their research found that body temperatures are lower today than they were in the 1970s. That led to a conclusion that Wunderlich’s research and the 98.6-degree temperature was accurate a century-and-a-half ago. However, for a variety of reasons, human body temperature has been falling over the past century-and-a-half.
“People are taller, fatter and live longer, and we don’t really understand why all those things have happened,” said Julie Parsonnet, who specializes in infectious diseases at Stanford and is the senior author of the paper. “Temperature is linked to all those things. The question is which is driving the others.”[1]
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