Nasal congestion or fever as a mechanism to combat infection
As far as I know, nasal congestion and fever are generally regarded as symptoms of many illnesses (e.g. flu), not as mechanisms that the body uses to fight an infection. Nonetheless, a lot of people still seem to abide by the rule that you should "tough it out" and not take medicine to reduce these symptoms. Some people seem to express the belief that they will actually get through there illness faster if they suffer through it.
Is there any evidence to support that belief? It seems to me that such an argument would only be valid if one could show that the body is actually using the fever or nasal congestion to eradicate the infection. I could imagine that there might be instances like the following:
a certain type of microbe dies at a few degrees above body temperature, or the higher temperature significantly slows down reproduction
nasal congestion restricts the ability of the microbe to get to XYZ in the body, thereby limiting the effectiveness of the infection.
Are there any examples where this might be the case? Or are there some common cases in which fever or congestion can be shown to actually help fight the infection?
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FEVER
There is still no final agreement among experts about the treatment of fever, but recently some of them lean toward not treating it unless it's life-threatening.
Fever: suppress or let it ride? (PubMed, 2015):
There are two basic fields of thought: (I) fever should be suppressed
because its metabolic costs outweigh its potential physiologic benefit
in an already stressed host; vs. (II) fever is a protective adaptive
response that should be allowed to run its course under most
circumstances. The latter approach, sometime referred to as the “let
it ride” philosophy, has been supported by several recent randomized
controlled trials.
The result of one of such trials
Acetaminophen for Fever in Critically Ill Patients with Suspected Infection (PubMed, 2015) was:
Early administration of acetaminophen to treat fever due to probable
infection did not affect the number of ICU [Intensive Care Unit]-free
days.
The conclusion of another review Fever management: Evidence vs current practice (PubMed, 2012):
The accumulated data now suggest that fever has a protective role in
promoting host defence against infection, rather than being a passive
by-product.
NASAL CONGESTION
Does nasal congestion prevent the spread of microbes through the body?
In nasal infection, the microbes multiply in the nasal mucosa from where they can spread via airways to other parts of the respiratory system or via the blood to the entire body. At the time of infection, there are likely many more microbes in the nasal mucosa then in the outside air, so nasal congestion probably does not significantly protect from further infection.
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