Lose Weight, Get Smarter?

Here's another reason to drop a few pounds: It could keep your brain from shrinking. Recent research from UCLA suggests that for every pound we gain, the less gray matter we have. According to neuroscientist Paul Thompson, the lead study author, most of the lost tissue from the study's overweight subjects came from their frontal and temporal lobes–the areas of the brain primarily responsible for decision-making and memory. What's more, the brains of the obese study participants looked more than a decade older than their healthy counterparts.