Brain and Ice Cream

You may have heard about the study by a professor at Kyorin University in Tokyo who decided to study the impact of ice cream—first thing in the morning—and the brain. According to the Abstract, researchers gave participants three spoonful’s (don’t know how big the spoons were) of ice cream first thing in the morning. The study participants were then asked to do a series of exercises on a computer. Turns out that those who ate the ice cream were better able to process the information and had a faster reaction time as compared with those who had not eaten anything in the morning. The researchers repeated the study asking participants to drink ice-cold water. Although the ‘alertness’ results were similar, the effect was smaller compared to when patients ate ice cream. What may be happening in the brain? More tomorrow.