New research reveals why you shouldn’t take emergency medicine when you have a fever

New University of Alberta research suggests that allowing mild fever to run its course may have health benefits, as untreated moderate fever in fish helps clear infection faster and control inflammation. Although the benefits of natural fever for humans still need confirmation, researchers believe that similar benefits are likely due to fever mechanisms shared across the animal kingdom.

Studies on fish suggest that delaying drug use may be beneficial in humans.

According to new research from the University of Alberta, it’s better to let a mild fever run its natural course rather than immediately resort to medication.

The researchers discovered that leaving the fish untreated for a simple fever helped them to quickly clear the infection from their bodies, control inflammation and repair any damaged tissue. “We let nature do what it does, and in this case, it was a very positive thing,” says immunologist Daniel Barreda, lead author of the study and joint professor in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences. Science.

A moderate fever is self-limiting, meaning the body can induce it and turn it off naturally without medication, Barreda explains. The health benefits of natural fever for humans have yet to be confirmed by research, but researchers say that because the mechanisms for driving and sustaining fever are shared among animals, it is reasonable to expect similar benefits in humans.

That suggests that at the first sign of a mild fever, we should resist reaching for over-the-counter fever medications, also known as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, he says. “They relieve the discomfort that comes with a fever, but you’re also providing some of the benefits of this natural response.”

Using a custom swim chamber to study how fish responded behaviorally to fever, researchers Daniel Barreda, Amro Soliman, Farah Haddad and their team found that mild fever allowed the fish to quickly clear infection from their bodies, control inflammation, and reverse tissue damage. got help Credit: University of Alberta

The study helps shed light on the mechanisms contributing to the moderate fever advantage, which Barreda notes has been evolutionarily conserved across the animal kingdom for 550 million years. “Every animal examined has this biological response to infection.”

For the study, fish were given a bacterial infection and their behavior was then tracked and evaluated using[{” attribute=””>machine learning. Outward symptoms were similar to those seen in humans with fever, including immobility, fatigue, and malaise. These were then matched to important immune mechanisms inside the animals.

The research showed that natural fever offers an integrative response that not only activates defenses against infection, but also helps control it. The researchers found that fever helped to clear the fish of infection in about seven days — half the time it took for those animals not allowed to exert fever. Fever also helped to shut down inflammation and repair injured tissue.

“Our goal is to determine how to best take advantage of our medical advances while continuing to harness the benefits from natural mechanisms of immunity,” says Barreda.

Reference: “Fever integrates antimicrobial defences, inflammation control, and tissue repair in a cold-blooded vertebrate” by Farah Haddad, Amro M Soliman, Michael E Wong, Emilie H Albers, Shawna L Semple, Débora Torrealba, Ryan D Heimroth, Asif Nashiry, Keith B Tierney and Daniel R Barreda, 14 March 2023, eLife.
DOI: 10.7554/eLife.83644