Is it true that your body temperature will rise with a bacterial infection but lower with a virus?
Sunday, July 11th, 2010 at
5:05 pm
I recently heard that an organisms body temperature will become lower if it has a viral illness. I know that it will raise with a bacterial infection as the bodys way of destroying any bacteria… but why would it lower for a virus?
Filed under: Bacterial Vaginosis
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A fever is a response to infection. (they can happen for other reasons too.) It doesn’t matter if the infection is bacterial, viral, fungal, parasitic…your temp goes up.
I know it will rise in a bacterial infection, because the body is trying to fight it off, and is producing white blood cells to fight it. Also your body temperature raises because many bacteria can not survive at higher temperatures, and they cannot replicate either at a high temp, it cuts it off. In a viral infection though, I’m not too sure. HIV and AIDS are viruses and people have those for a long time, so I don’t think it could raise your temp, because people with those viruses wouldnt be able to deal, since if your body temp rises above 104, you die. But I don’t know if it lowers your body temperature.
I’m not sure where you heard this. Next time you have a cold and feel really, really bad, take your temperature and see if it is lower. Colds are caused by viruses. Sometimes we can use our own bodies for scientific experiments!
Cell wall component of bacteria is the pyrogen, called LPS (Lipopolysaccharides). But Viruses don’t have these pyrogens.
Have you ever had a flu (viral disease)? what are the signs of this infection? Of course fever is a big one. This by itself tells you that your argument is faulty. Again, there are too many viral and bacterial pathogens to make these generalizations.
It is true that bacteria have fever-inducing agents such as LPS in gram neg. bacteria but it is also true that viral attack may lead to production of interferons, which are also induce fever. Even parasites have their own fever inducing agents. Truth is that a pathogen can carry pyrogenic antigens and or induce inflammation by unique pathogenesis that includes destruction of host cells.