Chilling body doesn’t stop bacterial infection

Bacterial meningitis, caused by microbes such as Streptococcus pneumonmiae (shown), can damage the brain. Cooling the body with induced hypothermia to prevent the damage does not seem to be as helpful as once thought, a new study shows.

R. Facklam, J. Carr/CDC

Lowering the body temperature of individuals with severe bacterial meningitis may not help improve patients’ health and could do more harm than good, a new study suggests.

The results, which appear November 27 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, are similar to recently reported findings that suggest that induced hypothermia is not as helpful or safe for treating individuals with cardiac arrest as once thought.

Ashley Yeager is the associate news editor at Science News. She has worked at The Scientist, the Simons Foundation, Duke University and the W.M. Keck Observatory, and was the web producer for Science News from 2013 to 2015. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a master’s degree in science writing from MIT.