Definition of fever
The term "fever" refers to a slight increase in body temperature, which rises above the normal values (36.4 / 37.2 ° C) remaining below 38 ° C.
Generally, "fever" is considered to be any body temperature rise above the normal values, of which the low-grade fever, barely exceeding the physiological values, represents the minimum variation.
Fever and sport
In sportsmen, the aforementioned rise in body temperature, above 37 ° C, seems to improve athletic performance, increasing metabolism, facilitating the release of energy and promoting the speed of propagation of nervous stimuli.
Fever and menstrual cycle
Many women, during the menstrual cycle, complain of a slight increase in the standard body temperature values, or mild fever: the condition must not alarm, considering that for the whole ovulatory phase an increase of 0.5 / 0.6 degrees is considered normal . Not surprisingly, basal temperature monitoring is a method adopted by some women as an index of ovulation, to understand when one's body is potentially suitable (or not) for conception. In fact, the physiological temperature of the fertile woman is not constant, but undergoes lowering and elevation based on ovulation: generally, around the 14th / 15th day from the beginning of menstruation (second phase of the ovarian cycle), the basal thermal level it undergoes a considerable rise, which coincides with the moment in which the corpus luteum starts the production of progesterone: the slight fever persists for the remaining part of the cycle.
Stress fever
Some particularly sensitive subjects complain of a slight basal thermal fluctuation in relation to mood, fatigue and stress. Although there are no studies demonstrating the direct connection between stress and low-grade fever, it seems, however, that strong periods of stress affect the hypothalamic thermoregulation center, "moving" it to a temperature higher than the physiological levels, although it is not true and own fever: in this regard, stress has been defined as "an inexplicable cause of basal thermal alteration". In fact, psychological stress could induce an increase in basal metabolism which is reflected, in fact, in the excessive production of heat responsible for the low-grade fever.
Considering that, by definition, fever is nothing but a defensive reaction of the organism in the face of possible external aggression, stress could be perceived as a probable dangerous source: in response, the defense reaction is, in this case, the fever.
Fever and symptoms
It is difficult to accurately and objectively describe the symptomatology that results from the fever, as each organism reacts differently to stimuli. For some subjects, the low-grade fever is asymptomatic so that, not causing symptoms, some often do not even realize they have it: not by chance, in fact, most of the time it passes "unnoticed" and is not recognized, if not by chance .
The low-grade fever, when not persistent, should not alarm too much: it could instead be worrying when it appears every day. For example, among all the symptoms caused by tuberculosis, the chronic fever also stands out, which could easily develop into a true fever. Obviously, tuberculosis is a serious disease, which must be treated promptly.
Causes
It is not uncommon for the doctor to deal with patients "suffering" from chronic fever, the only abnormal symptom that persists for days, weeks or even months.
In some cases, the low-grade fever is a "friendly symptom" because it favors the timely recognition of certain pathologies such as, for example, chronic infections (brucellosis), diseases that affect the blood and pathologies of the lymphatic glands. In general, the low-grade fever that affects healthy young people, although chronic, is not alarming and, as already analyzed, the cause is considered to be psychogenic (stress); the discourse is different for those elderly people, in whom chronic fever, persistent and apparently inexplicable, could indicate more serious diseases, such as neoplasms (a similar clinical picture occurs at the onset of Hodgkin's lymphomas).
However, chronic fever remains an inexplicable mystery still for many patients, because the search for the causes that cause it remains an unknown factor.
