Treating the fever that accompanies an attack of malaria could help protect the brain and shorten the illness, suggest researchers.

A team of researchers from Mahidol University, Thailand, found that the parasite which causes malaria appears to work better as body temperature rises.

There has been controversy on whether the trademark fever that accompanies malaria should be treated with drugs such as paracetamol.

We should be using antipyretic drugs to lower the temperature of people with malaria

Dr Alex Rowe, University of Edinburgh

Other scientists have argued that doing this could actually extend the time it takes the body to tackle the parasite.

However, the latest research takes the opposite tack.

It focused on what happens to red blood cells once they are invaded by the Plasmodium falciparum parasite.

Sticky blood

They induce changes in the surface of the red blood cell which tends to make it "sticky", either joining together in lumps called "rosettes" or adhering to the walls of blood vessels.

Either way, this creates a potential danger for the body, as the rosettes or the "adherences" may slow down blood flow through the tiny capilliaries of the brain, denying oxygen to its tissues.

The Thai researchers wanted to test the relative "stickiness" of cells at various body temperatures.

In a laboratory, they looked at malaria-infected cells at normal body temperature - 37 degrees celsius - and again at 40 degrees, the temperature of a relatively high fever.

At normal body temperature, the cells did not readily stick to receptors on the walls of blood vessels.

At 40 degrees, infected cells adhered rapdily.

Protein key

Other experiments suggested that the extra temperature may allow the parasite to provoke the release of more of a particular protein, called PfEMP1, on the surface of the red blood cell.

This is what gives the cell its sticky qualities.

Dr Alex Rowe, a researcher in parasitology at the University of Edinburgh, said that the finding could lead to trials testing the temperature theory in humans.

She told BBC News Online: "The bottom line of this research does suggest that we should be using antipyretic drugs to lower the temperature of people with malaria."

The research was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.