Learning Secrets from an Ancient Brain

Archeologists in the UK recently made a surprising discovery: a 2,500 year old human skull, which they think belonged to a man between 26 and 45 years old. Finding human bones is no surprise–it’s what was INSIDE the skull that was so surprising: a brain. What secrets will it reveal? On Fox News, Wynne Parry quotes archeologist Sonia O’Connor as saying, "It’s particularly surprising, because if you talk to pathologists who deal with fresh dead bodies they say the first organ to really deteriorate and to basically go to liquid is the brain because of its high fat content."

The COLOR of this brain makes it seem like the owner was a smoker, but we know that tobacco hadn’t arrived in the UK yet. When other researchers compared brain function in adolescent smokers and non-smokers, with a focus on the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain that guides "executive functions" like decision-making and that is still developing structurally and functionally in adolescents, they found a disturbing correlation: The greater a teen’s addiction to nicotine, the less active the prefrontal cortex was, suggesting that smoking can affect brain function–the last thing a teenager with years of high school and college ahead of him needs!

Meanwhile, it turns out that O’Connor is an old hand at this: A few years ago, she was part of the team that discovered 25 preserved brains from the medieval era in another part of the UK.

Many teens (especially young women) start smoking because they think it will make them thinner, but it actually makes you fatter! This is only one of the diet tips in Anne Strieber’s incredibly valuable diet book "What I Learned From the Fat Years," which is her own personal story of how she lost 100 pounds. She also writes extensively about exercise and recommends the best kind for YOU. If you’re even just a few pounds overweight, but can’t seem to shed them, this is the book for you!