Forget porridge and cereal, eating ICE CREAM for breakfast ‘makes you smarter’
Research from Japan claims that an early-morning indulgence of the frozen favourite can boost brain power and raise alertness
We're regularly told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
But from Japan suggests we've been doing it all wrong - and that ice-cream, rather than whole grain cereal - should be our first choice.
As reported in , professor Yoshihiko Kogafrom from Tokyo's Kyorin University claims the sweet treat can actually enhance mental function when its eaten first-thing.
He studied a group of people who consumed the frozen food immediately after waking up, then performed mental exercises on a computer.
Compared to a separate group who had standard breakfasts, they exhibited greater cognitive skill, faster reaction times and stronger processing skills.
They also seemed to show high-frequency Alpha-waves, which play a major role in alertness.
Assuming that the results related to the freezing temperatures, he repeated the same test with iced water - but, although there were similar improvements, the results were not as substantial.
The findings suggest a correlation between the temperature and the sugar combined, although this is yet to be confirmed.
Not that this is the first time dessert has been recommended to jump-start your day, of course.
In 2012, scientists from Tel Aviv University conducted a similar study which found that eating chocolate cake for breakfast could aid weight loss.
Dr. Daniela Jakubowicz from Tel Aviv University in Israel claimed that consuming sugar-laden treats with the carbs and proteins typically found in greasy fry-ups help control cravings long-term.
However, the latest news flies in the face of supermarket initiatives to make breakfast products healthier. It comes just days after it was revealed that Waitrose has slashed sugar content in its cereals to help address the UK's obesity epidemic.
A total of 27 own-brand cereals will see average sugar content cut by 15 per cent, bosses said earlier this week.
Family favourites such as rice pops, malted wheats and multigrain hoops will all have lower sugar levels with some products, such as bran flakes, seeing sugar content down by 30 per cent.
This success means more than 90 tonnes or 22.5 million teaspoons of sugar a year will have been taken out of the supermarket’s own label cereals.
Meanwhile, it was recently claimed that E-numbers in ice cream could increase the risk of developing bowel cancer.
Scientists at Georgia State University found regularly eating dietary emulsifiers, which are regularly found in ice-cream, can alter a person’s gut bacteria for the worse.
A growing body of scientific evidence points to the gut microbiome – a vast, diverse population of microorganisims in the intestines – as a driving role in the development of the disease.
Tumorigenesis, also known as “colitis-associated cancer”, is a condition where gut inflammation increases the risk of tumours forming.
