National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey I contains data from 1971 to 1975. The earliest set, compiled from military service records, medical records and pension records from Union Army veterans of the Civil War, captures data between 18 and includes people born in the early 1800s. Parsonnet and her colleagues analyzed temperatures from three datasets covering distinct historical periods. The researchers propose that the decrease in body temperature is the result of changes in our environment over the past 200 years, which have in turn driven physiological changes. Myroslava Protsiv, a former Stanford research scientist who is now at the Karolinska Institute, is the lead author. Parsonnet, who holds the George DeForest Barnett Professorship, is the senior author. In a study published today in eLife, Parsonnet and her colleagues explore body temperature trends and conclude that temperature changes since the time of Wunderlich reflect a true historical pattern, rather than measurement errors or biases. A recent study, for example, found the average temperature of 25,000 British patients to be 97.9 F. Modern studies, however, have called that number into question, suggesting that it’s too high. That standard of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit was made famous by German physician Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich, who published the figure in a book in 1868. “What everybody grew up learning, which is that our normal temperature is 98.6, is wrong.” “Our temperature’s not what people think it is,” said Julie Parsonnet, MD, professor of medicine and of health research and policy. Since the 19 th century, the average human body temperature in the United States has dropped, according to researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
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