so chemo is just fevers revenge
It feels so weird to me that the small change in degrees might actually kill a virus. I mean, wouldn’t all viruses by now have become accustomed to “warmer climates”?
Or is it a cat / mouse game, our bodies being able to heat up more and them getting more fire resistant by the year. Was a fever less hot a couple of hundred years ago?
- Omega_Haxors ( @Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml ) English2•1 year ago
It’s in the air if viruses are even alive, you’re giving them way too much agency in the matter.
Viruses do adapt and mutate though. Look at all the various strains of H1N1 and SARS-COV-2.
Just because they don’t reproduce without a host cell doesn’t mean evolution doesn’t happen. If a trait emerges that is beneficial to future generations, viruses carrying that trait can infect more cells and spread further.
Usually it’s evolution itself that people give too much agency to. Mutations are a crapshoot. They can be beneficial or they can cause birth defects, sterility, prevent reaching sexual maturity, or make finding a mate excessively difficult. Or all of the above.
Heat resistance generally reduces a pathogens fitness at normal temps. The human body is also far more heat resistant than individual viruses thanks to being a big multi cellar organism with many expendable cells. A fever isn’t your only method of dealing with viruses either, you’re just stacking the deck against them do your immune system has a better time.
40+ is where it gets really interesting, introducing the possibility of getting delirious with weirdly unsettling hallucinations.
Don’t fuel them by watching TV is all I’m gonna say.
Last time I had intense fever dream was when I was a child. For some reason I never had another. As an adult, I would get sick with occasional high temperature but I would wake up immediately as soon as I sweat heavily.
Immune system to the infection: “If I die, I’m taking you with me!”