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Speaker 1: Get smarter in sixty seconds with brain Stuff from how

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Speaker 1: stuffworks dot com Hi Marshall Brain. When your body temperature

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Speaker 1: rises because of an infection, it's called a fever. Fevers

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Speaker 1: are caused by chemicals called pyrogens flowing in the bloodstream.

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Speaker 1: Pyrogens make their way to the hypothalamus in your brain,

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Speaker 1: which is in charge of regulating your body temperature. When

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Speaker 1: pyrogens bind to certain receptors in the hypothalamus, your body

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Speaker 1: temperature rises. So where do the pyrogens come from? One

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Speaker 1: common pyrogen is called inner luken one or I L one.

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Speaker 1: I L one is produced by white blood cells called

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Speaker 1: macrophages when they come into contact with certain bacteria and viruses.

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Speaker 1: One purpose of a fever is thought to be to

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Speaker 1: raise the body's temperature enough to kill off certain bacteria

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Speaker 1: and viruses that are sensitive to temperature changes. One interesting

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Speaker 1: debate right now, therefore, is would you lower a fever. Aspirin,

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Speaker 1: for example, will reduce fever, But if the fever is

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Speaker 1: actually helping rid the body of infection, then lowering it

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Speaker 1: might not be such a good idea. On the other hand,

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Speaker 1: people sometimes die from fever. Right now, the general medical

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Speaker 1: consensus falls on the reduced the fever side of the coin.

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Speaker 1: Do you have any ideas or suggestions for this podcast?

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Speaker 1: If so, please send me an email at podcast at

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. For more on this and

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Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, go to how stuff works dot

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