Thursday, November 24, 2011

The Truth About Brain Freeze

Eat ice cream too fast and you get it. Slurp an Icee slurpee too fast and you get it. Brain freeze, that is. Your sinuses pound, your eyes hurt, your brain goes into convulsions.
And then, when your brain returns to its normal function, you start to worry. The obvious question to ask is, “What did that do to my brain? Is it permanently damaged?”
We may never find out for sure scientifically, as the National Institutes of Health has not made any effort to fund research on the matter. But some neurosurgeons at Johns Hopkins Hospital did some experimentation.
Although the brain’s temperature was dropped as low as 64°, they found no harm done once they returned the brain to normal temperature (around 98.6° as we all know).
So … bear with the pain. That tasty milk shake is worth it. Every brain-chilling drop of it.

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