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Tackling puzzles for an hour burns 90 calories: Study
London, Nov 25 (PTI)
Solving puzzles is not only a good exercise for your brain, it also helps burn 90 calories within an hour, a new research claims.
"Our brains require 0.1 calories every minute simply to survive. When we do something challenging such as a puzzle or a quiz we can burn through 1.5 calories every minute," said lead researcher Tim Forrester from cannyminds.com. Thus, "doing puzzles and quizzes burns an average of 90 calories every hour," Forrester was quoted as saying by Daily Mail. Explaining the process, he said, the brain is made up of millions of nerve cells called neurons which produces neurotransmitters -- the chemicals used to relay signals -- to transmit messages to the body. Neurons extract three-quarters of sugar glucose, available calories and a fifth of oxygen from the blood to create neurotransmitters, he said. So, doing difficult crosswords or challenging Sudokus means your brain will crave more glucose and more calories too, he added. Hence, if you spent an hours solving puzzles, you would have used 90 calories - which is more than that contained in a chocolate chip cookie (56 calories) or a custard cream (57 calories) or a jammy dodger (85 calories).
A British Dietetic Association spokesman, however, made it clear that consumption of calorie by brain would not help you lose that extra flab. "The brain is like any other body part - if you are working it hard, it will need more calories to work well," the spokesman said. But it is clearly not possible to think yourself thinner, because although the brain uses a lot of energy, it does not uses fat to do so, he added. So if you want to lose weight, you will still need to exercise and eat healthily, he asserted.
