Does ice cream "freeze" your child's brain? Let's talk about "ice cream headache"

This is the 3883rd article of Da Yi Xiao Hu

Summer is here, and it is so happy to eat ice cream with friends on the way home from school! Ruirui and the two children just now are competing to see who can finish 3 ice creams at a time. No one wants to fall behind and they eat them in big mouthfuls. Just after eating the ice cream, before they have time to decide the winner, the two children feel their tongues and scalps on the top of their heads are numb. After a while, their temples on both sides are throbbing. They feel their heads are swollen and painful, and they hurriedly run all the way home. Strangely, this uncomfortable feeling disappears after they get home. But the two seem to be under the "curse" of ice cream. When they drink their favorite iced sour plum soup or other cold drinks, eat the delicious popsicles and cones, they will feel the familiar headache and swelling again, and the duration will be short or long. The family soon discovered that the "little greedy cat" actually stays away from cold food and cold drinks. After learning the cause and effect, they quickly took the children to see a doctor. After the two children "confessed the truth", the doctor diagnosed it as "vasomotor headache", commonly known as "ice cream headache", "cold food and cold drink headache", also known as "brain freeze". It's not that the ice cream really "frozen" the children's brains, but eating a lot of cold food caused neuralgia.

Eating ice cream in large mouthfuls will cause the temperature of the upper jaw to drop suddenly. After the temperature receptors at the back of the upper jaw sense this rapid drop in temperature, they send an erroneous signal of "low body temperature" to the brain, causing the blood vessels in the brain to contract rapidly. Not long after eating the ice cream, as the temperature of the upper jaw is detected by the temperature receptors to return to normal, the nerve center will send a signal again, causing the brain blood vessels that were originally contracted rapidly to expand rapidly. Under the "ups and downs" of the violent contraction and expansion of brain blood vessels, people are usually prone to severe pain in the temples (such as throbbing temples) and forehead (see Figure 1 for the process), and sometimes the pain also occurs in the face.

Figure 1 Principle of “brain freeze”

In fact, this "cold headache" phenomenon is not just caused by ice cream, but all "cold drinks" can cause this result, so people often say "eating cold things will cause headaches" is true. Generally, people with irritable tempers, cold hands and feet in winter, and frostbite are prone to this type of headache. It is recommended to eat less cold food and cold drinks. What should we do if we really like to eat them? Or what should we do if this type of headache occurs?

1. Eat slowly. You can’t eat hot tofu in a hurry, nor can you eat iced watermelon or other cold delicacies;

2. If the general headache lasts only for a short time and feels tolerable, allow yourself to rest for a while and wait for recovery.

3. Temporarily abandon the spirit of "knowing there is a tiger in the mountain, but still going there", and generally prohibit the use of cold food and cold drinks for a few weeks to 2-3 months, otherwise it is very easy to relapse. During this period, adults and children should take promethazine orally under the guidance of doctors.

A foreign study shows that ice water stimulation can trigger cold food and cold drink headaches more than ice cubes. However, don’t think that “ice” will only cause trouble. We should see the two sides of things. In ancient times, ice was also an important medicinal material. For example, ice was often used in the south to “relieve heat and cure diseases”. Because the temperature in the south is high and the ice is thin, people often sprinkle salt on the ice in winter so that they can eat it in summer. There were many kinds of ice drinks and ice food in the Song Dynasty. Even Emperor Xiaozong of Song loved to eat cold drinks. The Compendium of Materia Medica and the History of the Song Dynasty secretly recorded that he had diarrhea after eating cold drinks.

In addition to "ice cream headaches", some improper diets can also cause headaches:

1. Caffeine headache

Originally, a fixed combination of analgesics and caffeine was the treatment of choice for migraine patients, but a new study published in the American Journal of Medicine showed that daily intake of caffeinated beverages is associated with the onset of migraine on the same day or the next day. It is also reported that 50% of people who have the habit of drinking coffee may experience a series of withdrawal syndromes such as headaches 12 to 24 hours after stopping chronic caffeine intake, so the process of reducing coffee intake should be gradual.

2. Thirst and headache

Dehydration is a major cause of headaches, which can cause cerebral blood vessels to narrow and reduce the blood oxygen supply to the brain, thus inducing headaches. Therefore, you should replenish your water intake regularly, and don't wait until you are "thirsty" to think of drinking water, because at this time your body is already dehydrated.

3. Hunger headache

Insufficient calorie intake may cause dizziness and headaches. It is best to form a regular eating schedule every 4 hours, and the intervals between meals should not be too long.

4. Sweetener headache

Some people experience headaches after drinking beverages, perhaps because they are particularly sensitive to the aspartame in them. Therefore, when purchasing snacks and beverages, in addition to paying attention to important information such as the production date, shelf life, and place of production, you should also pay attention to the ingredient list. People who frequently eat foods with artificial sweeteners should observe symptoms at all times. If you want to replace sweeteners, you can use honey (of course, honey, like snacks and beverages, is not suitable for undeveloped children to eat too much).

Delicious dairy ice cream can relieve heat, but it can also cause headaches. Refreshing coffee can also make people unable to stop... It can be seen that we must grasp the "degree" when facing delicious food and do not ignore the reminders of the body, so as not to "freeze" happiness and enjoyment.

Author: Yuan Ying, resident physician and master’s student at Shuguang Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Editor-in-chief and tutor: Shen Jian, Department of Pediatrics, Shuguang Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, chief physician, teaching director. Doctor of Medicine, master's supervisor. National TCM innovation backbone talent of the National TCM Inheritance and Innovation "Hundreds of Thousands" Talent Project of the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine.