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This is probably the strangest finding in nutrition studies, and it is related to ice cream - voila! health

2023-05-05T04:58:11.616Z


On the one hand studies have found health benefits for ice cream, on the other hand scientists don't really understand how it happened. So ice cream - healthy or not?


This is how to prepare the hit of the summer - ice cream inside a fruit roll-up (PROJECTCANDYOFFICIAL)

It is delicious and sweet and full of fat, so how is it that until now ice cream has been seen as a food that can contain health benefits?

Recently an American public health historian revealed how many studies over several decades have repeatedly found mysterious health benefits of the frozen dessert and on the other hand scientists admit that they have no idea how this happened.



In an article for Atlantic magazine, David Merritt Jones said he first began looking into the claims last summer after hearing about a 2018 study by a Harvard doctoral student that found that eating half a cup (64 grams) of ice cream a day was associated with a lower risk of heart problems in diabetics.

Upon further investigation, Jones discovered that the data collected for the study was more than 20 years old and the study itself was observational—which meant that he could not prove that eating ice cream per se was directly responsible for reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease in people with type 2 diabetes.



In another paper published in 2014, researchers looked at another dozen years of dietary follow-up data and found that "higher consumption of yogurt was associated with a reduced risk" of type 2 diabetes, "while other dairy foods and dairy product consumption were not."

But according to Dariush Mozfarian, dean of policy at Tufts University's School of Nutrition and a co-author of the paper, "the conclusions were not precisely written. They say that no foods are associated—ice cream was associated," he said.

Ice cream for breakfast?

Former US President Barack Obama enjoys an ice cream (Photo: Reuters)

"There is a perception that ice cream is not healthy, but it has fat, it has protein, it has vitamins. It is better for you than bread," Mozfarian said.

"Given how terrible the American diet is, it's very possible that if someone eats ice cream and eats less starch, it can actually protect against diabetes."



"Could the idea that ice cream protects the body metabolically be true? That would be pretty crazy. Still, there are at least a few points in its favor," writes Merritt Jones, citing the glycemic index of ice cream, which is lower than that of brown rice, and the benefits Supposedly of dairy products.

Calcium, along with sugar and fat

But the findings of these studies have so far received a frosty reception.

"As a public health specialist, I'm not going to rush out to eat more ice cream based on this research," John Ford, a senior clinical lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, told the Guardian website.

"There are many other potential explanations - it could be that people are more likely to eat ice cream to cool down after walking or exercising, or it could be that people tend to choose ice cream as a dessert over something else."



"The problem in the end is that we try to link a health effect or benefit to a single food, when in reality we eat a variety of foods, and it is our entire dietary pattern that determines," explained Dr. Duane Mellor, senior lecturer and dietician at the Aston School of Medicine.



However, she admitted that ice cream "may contain some nutrients that can be beneficial such as calcium, and that it has a low glycemic index, but is high in sugar and calories. Therefore, overall we should not consider ice cream a health food, but just something to be enjoyed of it in small amounts as part of a general healthy diet," she said.



"I think that probably the relationship between health and ice cream is still reverse causation," Mozfarian said later in the interview.

"But I'm not sure, and I'm quite upset about it."

He added that if it had been a patented drug, "you can bet the company would have done a $30 million randomized controlled trial to see if ice cream prevents diabetes."

  • health

  • Nutrition and diet

Tags

  • Ice cream

  • diet

Source: walla

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