What? Your brain will freeze? Be careful when eating this kind of food!

Edit: April

Recently, all parts of the country have entered a high-temperature "roasting" mode. Netizens jokingly said that "all it needs is a handful of cumin." In such a hot summer, ice cream, cold drinks, etc. have become hot-selling products.

28-year-old Xiao Wang also wants to eat some ice cream to cool down.

I didn't expect to take a big bite.

Sudden severe headache

The brain seems to be "frozen"

I rushed to the hospital

Doctors diagnosed it as " brain freeze "

WHAT? Can the brain freeze?

Why does eating ice cream give me a headache?

Brain freeze is also known as "ice cream headache", which is a figurative expression. Its scientific name is pterygopalatine ganglion pain. According to doctors, if you eat too much cold food, your palate will be cooled quickly, and there is a nerve center at the back of your palate. At this time, the nerve group in the nerve center will send signals to the brain to change the body temperature.

When you eat too much cold food, these nerve groups will be overstimulated and send wrong signals to the brain, causing spasm of the cerebral arteries, as if the brain is "frozen". The blood flow suddenly impacts the pain nerve endings. At this time, people will feel severe pain in the middle of the forehead or near the temple, and some people may also feel nausea and vomiting.

Simply put, swallowing ice food too quickly or swallowing too much in one mouthful is most likely to cause this symptom . When the temperature of the upper palate returns to normal, the brain will "thaw" and the headache will be relieved, but some patients have obvious symptoms.
Does eating cold drinks quickly give you a headache?

Scientists: The body has activated a protective mechanism

Drinking cold drinks or eating ice cream quickly often triggers a short and severe headache. Studies have shown that this pterygopalatine ganglion pain, commonly known as "brain freeze," is a warning sent by the body when it suddenly cools down . Wayne Godwin, a neurologist at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in the United States, pointed out that brain freeze is actually a headache that comes on suddenly but also subsides quickly. Our mouth and tongue are full of blood vessels, so we can bring temperature there. However, if we drink cold drinks quickly, the mouth does not have enough time to assimilate the cold feeling.

When a cold drink is consumed quickly, there is a sudden change in temperature at the junction of the posterior pharyngeal wall and the internal carotid artery, which is responsible for pumping blood to the brain and the anterior cerebral artery. "One thing the brain doesn't like is when something changes, and brain freeze is a defense mechanism to prevent that from continuing," Godwin said. The pain associated with "brain freeze" is detected by receptors in the meninges. When the cold hits, it triggers the dilation and constriction of these arteries, which is what the brain expresses as pain."

What should I do if I suddenly have an ice cream headache? Ice cream headache is a benign headache. The pain is generally tolerable and rarely accompanied by other organic diseases, so most patients do not need medication. The headache is usually in the upper part of the head, often in the middle of the forehead, sometimes in the temporal side, frontal region or posterior orbit, and manifests as a momentary stabbing pain or unbearable pain. In addition, clinical findings show that people with a history of headaches such as migraines are more likely to experience this condition.

If you have a headache after eating cold drinks, stop eating immediately and use your hands to massage your head to relieve headaches caused by blood vessels and muscle contraction. Press your tongue against the upper palate to quickly warm it up and relieve headaches. If the symptoms persist, you need to go to a regular hospital for examination.

In addition, doctors remind patients with a history of ice cream headaches to avoid contact of the palate with cold food when eating cold drinks, which can effectively prevent the occurrence of "ice cream headaches". Generally, do not consume frozen food or drinks quickly, and people with a history of migraines should eat less cold drinks.

How to Eat Ice Scientifically

Avoid swallowing a large amount of cold food quickly in a short period of time. Do not eat too much at one time. It is recommended not to eat more than 2 ice creams at a time. It is not advisable to drink more than half a bottle of iced drinks at one time. When tasting ice cream or other cold drinks, you can first gently place a small amount of ice cream at the front of the mouth, that is, near the tip of the tongue and the lips, let it stay there for a while, wait for it to melt naturally to a temperature close to body temperature, and then slowly swallow it. Doing so can significantly reduce the direct stimulation of cold drinks on the brain blood vessels, throat and respiratory tract.

In addition, especially for patients with cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, including hypertension, coronary heart disease, atherosclerosis, etc., the ability of blood vessels to self-regulate is relatively poor. "Sudden cold" can cause sudden contraction of blood vessels, which may cause discomfort. Therefore, these special groups of people need to be extra cautious when enjoying cold drinks, and try to avoid consuming a large amount of cold food in a short period of time to protect their health.

References:

[1] Sun Wenjun, Yuan Quan, Jia Jianping. Analysis of 56 cases of ice cream headache. Chinese Journal of Misdiagnosis. 2010, 10 (09)

[2] Drinking cold drinks quickly will cause headaches? Scientists: The body activates a protective mechanism. Food Industry. 2019, 40 (09)

[3] Do You Know? Fangyuan. 2018 (13)

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