Until recently, you probably only thought about your body temperature around flu season. But during the pandemic, knowing your body temperature is critical because fever can be one of the key symptoms of COVID-19.
直到最近，你可能只会在流感季节考虑你的体温。但在疫情期间，了解自己的体温至关重要，因为发热可能是新冠肺炎的主要症状之一。
You might be taking your temperature regularly or having it checked before entering a business or your workplace. When the numbers pop up, you're likely surprised they're not 98.6 degrees. Here's what you need to know about body temperature.
在进入公司或自己的工作场所之前，你可能会定期测量体温或做体温检查。当体温计上的数字出现时，你可能会惊讶：它竟然没有达到98.6华氏度。以下是你需要知道的关于体温的一些事实。
You probably grew up believing normal body temperature was 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius). The number is credited to two different groups of 19th-century researchers, but most widely believed to be based on a study by German physician Carl Wunderlich. He reportedly via armpit from more than 25,000 people and found 98.6 F (37 C) was the average temperature of healthy adults.
你可能从小就相信人类的正常体温是98.6华氏度（37摄氏度）。这个数字被认为是19世纪两组不同的研究人员得出的，但大多数人认为这是基于德国医生卡尔•温德利希的一项研究。据报道，他分析了超过25 000人腋下的100多万个体温读数，发现98.6华氏度（37摄氏度）是健康成年人的平均体温。
Wunderlich also recorded some interesting anomalies about temperature. He found it was lowest between 2 and 8 a.m. and highest between 4 and 9 p.m. He also noted that women tended to have slightly higher temperatures than men, and younger people generally have higher temperatures than older people.
温德利希还记录了一些关于体温的有趣异常。他发现，早上2点到8点之间的体温最低，下午4点到9点之间的体温最高。他还指出，女性的体温往往比男性略高，而年轻人的体温通常比老年人高。
Wunderlich's numbers have been widely accepted ever since. But more recent studies suggest human body temperatures have been falling over time. A 2017 study found the average body temperature now is 36.6 C (97.8 F). In an even more recent study, Stanford University researchers compared more than 677,000 temperatures from three groups of people including Civil War soldiers and people who had participated in two recent studies. Their findings confirmed that men born in the early 19th century had an average body temperature of 98.6 F but since then, it has fallen to an average for men and women of 97.5 F. The results were published in the journal eLife in January 2020. "We've changed in height, weight — and in body temperature," senior author Julie Parsonnet of Stanford tells Scientific American.
此后，温德利希的数据被广泛接受。但最近的研究表明，随着时间的推移，人体体温一直在下降。2017年的一项研究发现，现在的平均体温是36.6摄氏度(97.8华氏度)。在最近的一项研究中，斯坦福大学的研究人员比较了来自三组人的677 000多个体温，这些人包括内战士兵和参加过最近两项研究的人。他们的发现证实了：19世纪早期出生的男性的平均体温为华氏98.6度，但从那以后，男性和女性的平均体温都降到了华氏97.5度。研究结果发表在2020年1月的eLife杂志上。我们的身高、体重和体温都发生了变化，斯坦福大学的资深作者朱莉·帕森内特告诉《科学美国人》。
Why could temperatures be falling？为什么人类的体温会下降？The researchers didn't determine why body temperatures have dropped, but there are several possibilities. One primary possibility is that today, people have lower metabolic rates. "Like a car engine that's idling, your body consumes energy just keeping things going, and that generates heat," writes Robert H. Shmerling, MD, in Harvard Health. "A lower metabolic rate in modern times could be due to higher body mass, or better medical treatments, preventive measures, and overall health." Since Wunderlich's time, there has also been a significant decline in infectious diseases and inflammation. Diseases like tuberculosis and syphilis that cause inflammation were common centuries ago. They hiked body temperature.
研究人员还没有确定体温下降的原因，但有几种可能。一种主要的可能性是，如今人们的新陈代谢率较低。医学博士Robert H. Shmerling在《哈佛健康》上写道："就像汽车发动机空转一样，你的身体消耗能量来维持运转，这就产生了热量。在现代，较低的代谢率可能是由于较高的体重，或更好的医疗、预防措施和整体健康状况。"自温德利希的时代以来，传染病和炎症的发病率也显著下降。像肺结核和梅毒等引起炎症的疾病在几个世纪前很常见。他们提高了体温。
知识积累：
1. be credited to 认为是……的功劳；把……归于
2. be based on 以……为基础；根据
3. analyze (AmE) Analyse (BrE) v. to examine something carefully in order to understand it 分析
4. slightly adv. to some degree but not to a very large degree 略微；稍微
5. participate v. do an activity together with other people 参与
6. metabolic adj. relating to a person's or animal's metabolism新陈代谢的；代谢作用的
7. inflammation n. An inflammation is a painful redness or swelling of a part of your body that results from an infection, injury, or illness. 发炎；炎症
8. hike v. To increase or raise in amount, especially abruptly 提高；增加
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