Best treatment for fever? It depends
Dear Dr. Donohue: Should a person try to lower a fever? My mother always had me take aspirin when I was a child and had a fever. Now I react to fever just as my mother did. I always give my family aspirin when someone has one. Is this a good idea? — F.G.
Answer: Authorities have a hard time defining what a fever is, and they have a harder time advising what to do about one. Most define it as a temperature greater than 99.5 F (37.5 C) together with other signs and symptoms of illness. The latter is important because some perfectly healthy people have a slightly elevated body temperature. Furthermore, there is a daily variation in body temperature, with its nadir occurring at 6 a.m. and its high point about 10 to 12 hours later.
The body rarely reacts in ways that are not to its benefit. A fever, therefore, might bestow an advantage in containing invading germs and in bolstering the immune system. However, proof that it is advantageous is not overwhelming.
Neither is there overwhelming proof that it is necessary to lower a temperature in most instances. Higher body temperatures increase body metabolism and make the heart beat faster. People who are on the brink of heart failure might benefit from lowering an elevated temperature. The same holds for people whose lungs are not in tiptop shape. There is something to be said for lowering fevers in people who are prone to seizures. For everyone else, however, there is no pressing need to pass out medicines to bring down body temperature.
If a fever makes a person uncomfortable, then lowering it makes sense. When giving temperature-lowering medicines like aspirin and Tylenol, they should be given on a regular basis according to directions on the bottle. If they are given only on an as-needed basis, when their effects wane they can cause hectic fever spikes and drenching sweats. Aspirin should not be indiscriminately given to children whose temperature is elevated from viral infections, for fear of ushering in Reye’s syndrome.
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Dear Dr. Donohue: Is decaffeinated coffee a health threat? One of my co-workers saw me drinking it and claims it causes cancer. Does it? — B.N.
Answer: I can’t provide you with the exact length of time decaffeinated coffee has been around, but it has been a long time. Does your co-worker believe that a food would be allowed to stay on the market for that length of time if it caused cancer?
At one time, panic signals were sounded because some lab animals developed cancer due to methylene chloride. It’s a substance used to remove caffeine from coffee.
The amount of methylene chloride in decaffeinated coffee is too tiny to be a source of concern. Furthermore, most decaffeinated coffee these days has had its caffeine removed by a process that doesn’t employ methylene chloride.
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