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Comment by nano9 | Hacker News Reader

> [One key possibility] ... Lower metabolic rate: One of the biggest determinants of body temperature is your metabolic rate. Like a car engine that’s idling, your body expends energy just keeping things going, and that generates heat. A lower metabolic rate in modern times could be due to higher body mass (some studies link this with lower metabolic rate), or better medical treatments, preventive measures, and overall health.

I know it's not exactly "thinking with statistics", but it strikes me as too coincidental that the obesity epidemic has only exploded in recent decades too.

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This is what I came to say. When I was a teen my body ran hot, so hot people used to even comment at times it felt like I had heat coming off me. My normal temps were in the low 99.

Now, as an adult, my metabolism nosedived. I barely feel like eating once a day. It's not abnormal to get temps in the 96s, though that could just be the cheap covid thermometers.

I'm in my late 40s, people around me still comment that I'm radiating heat (and have commented that for at least 30 years), and I almost always feel too hot - used to walk with a short sleeve shirt in the dead of snowy winter when I lived in NYC.

But my temperature when measured is consistently below 36 celsius, often 35.

This is a really important aspect here. I am skeptical of efforts to lower the standard human body temp, because it seems to me like normalizing hypothyroidism and other metabolic disorders that, if taken seriously and treated would improve energy levels and quality of life.

It seems very likely to be metabolic rate. Most people are way more sedentary than in the past.

I'm curious how direct it is. If someone starts exercising from being sedentary for years does their body temperature raise appreciably?

I wouldn’t be that surprised to hear that they were always running slight fevers, though. The past was disgusting.

That’s an interesting idea, although overweight people actually have faster metabolisms by virtue of being bigger.

They burn more calories overall, but tend to have a lower resting metabolism per body weight, which is specifically what lower metabolism means in this context.

It makes sense. I think it explains some of it.

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