Friday, July 02, 2004

Is "Ice cream headache" truly the scientific term for brain freeze?

A quick search in PubMed for "ice cream headache" drew 18 hits, the oldest from 1918. Looking at the subject heading for these records I found that the Medical Subject Heading term one would search on is "Ice Cream/adverse effects." Some abstracts use the term "cold-induced headaches" such as this one that examines the relationship of such headaches to migraines (Headache. 1992 Jan;32(1):35-8).
BMJ has a few open access articles on the subject, which you can read in their entirety:

Ice cream evoked headaches (ICE-H) study: randomised trial of accelerated versus cautious ice cream eating regimen BMJ. 2002 December 21; 325 (7378): 1445–1446

This one mentions that, in deed, most kids know this as brain freeze.
Ice cream headache BMJ 1997;314:1364 (10 May)

So, if you search in PubMed it seems that it certainly is in the scientific vernacular. However, I would venture that it is not an official medical term since neither Ice Cream Headache nor Cold Induced Headache appear in Stedman's or Taber's Medical Dictionaries or in Current Medical Diagnosis & Treatment 2004.

Here's the link to the NPR Morning Edition show that got us on this subject: Morning Edition June 30, 2004.

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