This is the kind of science that an ice cream reporter waits a lifetime to read about: Ice cream is probably not that bad for you. Maybe.
An article in the May issue of The Atlantic goes deep on the unreported link between ice cream and better health.
According to writer David Merritt Johns, it began with a tip he got, that in 2018, “a Harvard doctoral student named Andres Ardisson Korat was presenting his research on the relationship between dairy foods and chronic disease to his thesis committee.”
“One of his studies had led him to an unusual conclusion,” Johns wrote. “Among diabetics, eating half a cup of ice cream a day was associated with a lower risk of heart problems.”
Could this be? Well, it turns out Korat wasn’t the first scientist to find a positive correlation between health and ice cream.
Johns wrote about another, earlier study out of Harvard Medical School that found “dairy-based desserts” were “associated for overweight people with dramatically reduced odds of developing insulin-resistance syndrome.”
The nutritional epidemiology community didn’t love it. In fact, they didn’t believe it, so they underplayed that result and played up another: the health benefits of yogurt.
The whole article is great, in-depth and worth a read, so I am not going to give away the conclusion. But I will say this: I have plans to pick up a pint or so of something cold at the grocery store this afternoon. And if you, dear reader, are looking for some options for local ice cream consumption, you’ve come to the right place.
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— Lizzy Acker
503-221-8052; lacker@oregonian.com; @lizzzyacker
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