Can ice cream be medicine?
Ice-cream used as cryotherapy during high-dose melphalan conditioning reduces oral mucositis after autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation
Swapping ice chips for ice cream during tough chemotherapy helped protect patients’ mouths from painful sores.
Ig Nobel 2022
Some strong chemotherapy can cause painful mouth sores. Sucking on ice chips during treatment helps, by cooling the mouth. Doctors in Warsaw looked back at 74 patients, many of whom had been given ice cream instead.
Patients who had the ice cream got mouth sores about half as often as those who didn’t. Cheap, easy and far more pleasant than a cup of ice: a rare treatment patients actually look forward to.
Prescription: one scoop, taken as needed.