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Bacterial/Viral infections

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Please help answer the following questions. Provide at least 300 words in the solution.

Bacterial or viral infections can cause a fever directly (from chemical messages produced by the infectious agent itself) or indirectly (from chemical messages produced by the immune system). How does the human body produce and respond to fever? What happens when a fever cannot be controlled?

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This solution helps with a problem regarding bacterial or viral infections. The explanation is given in 327 words.

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The human body initiates fever the same way it induces attempts to heat up the body when we're cold: it must pass through the ultimate temperature regulator of the body, the hypothalamus.

Certain components, both exogenous (external influences) and endogenous (inherent to the body), can cause the hypothalamus to induce an upregulation of body temperature. Exogenous ones, as you pointed out, can be from the infectious agent themselves. These chemical messengers affect endogenous signalling molecules which in turn act on the ...

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