Medical Doctors often prescribe Paracetamol whenever their patients have fever. I often avoid reducing my body temperature if it is below 38.0 Degree Celsius. Honestly speaking, whenever we are sick, it is better to have fever.
Does it sound like a myth to you? Am I kidding you? Are you surprise about what I had just said?
Pathogens (bacteria, viruses) and normal body temperature are usually optimized at 37.0 Degree Celsius. Similarly, if you are incubating a chicken egg, the temperature is also 37.0 Degree Celsius. If you are culturing an agar plate with e-coli bacterias, the required temperature is also 37.0 Degree Celsius. After looking at all these figures, I can conclude that most mammal live best at 37.0 Degree Celsius. This can also indirectly means that bacterias and viruses grow rapidly at 37 Degree Celsius. Taking Paracetamol reduces your body temperature to 37 Degree Celsius, thus enhancing the growth of bacteria and flu viruses.
When we have fever, our body temperature rises. The brain act as a thermostat to regulate the temperature according to how severe our condition is. The purpose of this evaluated body temperature is caused by the production of pyrogen to kill the pathogens. High fever slow down the enzyme in the bacteria, thus killing them. Viruses become inactive as our body temperature rises. Evaluated body temperature also speed up the body defence by enhancing the interaction of white blood cells with the pathogens.
By taking fever medicines, you are actually giving your body a slower chance to recover. When Paracetamol breaks down to its metabolite in the liver, preparing to be excreted from the body, this metabolite is toxic to our cells. You are only required to eat Paracetamol when your fever is above 38 Degree Celsius. This is because temperature from 39 Degree Celsius onward can cause brain damage due to the inability of the brain enzyme to work.
Doctors often advise us to eat 2 tablets (1000mg) of Paracetamol once every 6 hours. According to my own research and study, you only eat 1000mg of Paracetamol when you have high fever. If you have low to medium grade of fever, I would advise you to consume 1 tablet (500mg) of Paracetamol once every 4 hours. Firstly, the half life of the medicine and the conservative of drugs are more efficient. As you can see that the frequency of consuming the same quantity of drug is once every 6 hours (if you eat 2 tablets, 6 hourly) as compared to 8 hours (if you eat 2 tablets, 4 hourly). Secondly, your liver will have lesser stress to excrete the toxic metabolite of Paracetamol.
If you don't trust me that fever is beneficial rather than harmful, go ahead for a Google search. For your information, all the temperatures shown above are accurate only when you measure your temperature under the tongue.
