We came across an Instagram post containing a video that has attracted more than 200,000 likes, claiming that ice cream is now considered a “superfood” by science.
The post was shared by @checkoasis, an account linked to a product-scanning app called Oasis, and the individual featured in the post appears to be associated with the app. The app says it allows users to scan products in stores to identify potential contaminants such as nitrates and microplastics and provides a safety score and ingredient breakdown.
The post cites what it describes as a Harvard study of 190,000 people followed over 40 years, claiming that people who ate ice cream twice a week had a significantly lower risk of developing diabetes.
It further argues that “real” ice cream made from cream, milk and sugar contains compounds that may support metabolic health, and contrasts this with store-bought products that allegedly replace dairy fat with stabilisers and vegetable oils. The post then encourages viewers who wish to buy ice cream in stores to use its app to identify “top-rated” options.
During our research, we also found similar versions of the claim circulating on X and Facebook, with one X post garnering more than 6 million views, suggesting that the message has spread widely across platforms.
What the post is based on
The Instagram post references a 2018 PhD dissertation titled Dairy Products and Cardiometabolic Health Outcomes, which does not introduce new clinical or experimental data. Instead, it re-analyses existing observational data from long-running Harvard cohort studies tracking diet and health outcomes over time, using different statistical approaches and research questions.
These cohort studies are observational studies where researchers track a group of people over time, recording their behaviours (such as diet) and later comparing how many develop a particular health outcome. They are used to understand how everyday dietary patterns are associated with long-term health outcomes in large populations.
The dissertation itself is part of a broader body of work based on the same datasets that have also been analysed in other peer-reviewed studies over the years.
What the research shows
A 2014 peer-reviewed Harvard study used the same long-running cohort datasets, tracking nearly 190,000 adults over several decades to examine links between dairy intake and type 2 diabetes risk.
When researchers analysed ice cream consumption specifically, they found an unexpected pattern: people who reported eating ice cream more frequently appeared to have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared with those who rarely ate it. At face value, this appears to support the viral claim. However, the result is not straightforward and requires more context, which is missing from the Instagram post.
The researchers ran additional analyses to better reflect how people’s diets change over time. This is because many participants adjusted their eating habits after being diagnosed with conditions like high blood pressure or high cholesterol, for example, reducing ice cream intake and switching to lower-fat options such as skim milk.
When these post-diagnosis changes were taken into account, the association between ice cream and lower diabetes risk weakened. In contrast, the association for yogurt remained the most stable and consistently linked with lower risk of type 2 diabetes possibly due to its fermentation and probiotic content.
Importantly, the researchers themselves highlighted reverse causation as a likely explanation for the ice cream finding. This means that early signs of illness may influence dietary changes rather than food causing the health outcome. For example, people developing metabolic problems may reduce ice cream intake, while healthier individuals continue consuming it, creating a misleading statistical association that ice cream leads to lower diabetes risk.
There have also been relatively few studies that have examined the specific health effects of ice cream as a standalone food. Instead, research on dairy and health outcomes more commonly focuses on broader dietary patterns or dairy products as a group.
Follow-up article on ice-cream being a superfood
Notably, after the Instagram post received criticism online, the same publisher released a longer follow-up article titled “Ice Cream Is A Superfood” on its website.
The article repeats the same association between frequent ice cream consumption and lower diabetes risk. While it also acknowledges that the evidence comes from observational studies that cannot establish causation, it continues to frame ice cream in strongly positive terms.
Overall, the claim that ice cream is a “superfood” is likely false and not supported by scientific evidence. Ice cream is an energy-dense food, typically high in calories, added sugars, and saturated fats. Even versions marketed as “healthier” or “low-sugar” can still be similar in overall calorie content depending on formulation. For this reason, health authorities advise that it should be consumed in moderation. While it can be enjoyed occasionally as part of a balanced diet, there is no scientific basis for describing it as a “superfood.”
In addition, the Oasis app that is being promoted in the Instagram post has a subscription-based model, with key features and reports requiring payment. While it promotes itself as a tool for assessing how healthy a product is, such apps have been criticised for oversimplifying nutrition science and presenting complex food assessments in a way that may not reflect established dietary guidelines or peer-reviewed evidence. Users should therefore be cautious of treating app-based “health ratings” as definitive indicators of nutritional value.
