Archive for July, 2013

Skipping Breakfast? Read This!

July 30, 2013

Breakfast is considered the most important meal of the day.  It breaks the fasting period and therefore allows ones metabolism to be back up and running for the day.  Likewise, skipping breakfast has been shown in studies to put a patient at risk for multiple conditions including increasing risk of diabetes since fat breakdown during the period of prolonged fast can cause insulin resistance.  Now comes a new study published in Circulation 2013, showing that skipping breakfast is not healthy and friendly to the heart.

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Abstract

Background—Among adults, skipping meals is associated with excess body weight, hypertension, insulin resistance, and elevated fasting lipid concentrations. However, it remains unknown whether specific eating habits regardless of dietary composition influence coronary heart disease (CHD) risk. The objective of this study was to prospectively examine eating habits and risk of CHD.

Methods and Results—Eating habits, including breakfast eating, were assessed in 1992 in 26 902 American men 45 to 82 years of age from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study who were free of cardiovascular disease and cancer. During 16 years of follow-up, 1527 incident CHD cases were diagnosed. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate relative risks and 95% confidence intervals for CHD, adjusted for demographic, diet, lifestyle, and other CHD risk factors. Men who skipped breakfast had a 27% higher risk of CHD compared with men who did not (relative risk, 1.27; 95% confidence interval, 1.06–1.53). Compared with men who did not eat late at night, those who ate late at night had a 55% higher CHD risk (relative risk, 1.55; 95% confidence interval, 1.05–2.29). These associations were mediated by body mass index, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and diabetes mellitus. No association was observed between eating frequency (times per day) and risk of CHD.

Conclusions—Eating breakfast was associated with significantly lower CHD risk in this cohort of male health professionals.

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This study may not be conclusive due to study limitations BUT the results are not surprising to me at all.

Further studies need to be done especially on the relationship of late snacking and death.

A common theme arises however in all these studies that BREAKFAST is important for health and preservation of life.

Posted in General Health Tips, Healthy Practice Tips, Lifestyle Measures, Medical News Bits, Tips To Protect Your Heart | 24 Comments »