Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

Breakfast remains 'the most important meal of the day.' Nick Ansell/PA Images

People who skip breakfast are more likely to be overweight and develop heart disease

So says new academic research in the US.

PEOPLE WHO SKIP breakfast or eat poorly to start the day are twice as likely to develop hardened arteries, which can lead to deadly heart disease.

A study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology uncovered signs of damage to the arteries long before symptoms or disease developed.

Researchers said their findings could offer an important tool in the fight against cardiovascular disease, the world’s top killer, which took 17.7 million lives in 2015, according to the World Health Organisation.

“People who regularly skip breakfast likely have an overall unhealthy lifestyle,” said study author Valentin Fuster, director of Mount Sinai Heart and editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

This study provides evidence that this is one bad habit people can proactively change to reduce their risk for heart disease.

The report was based on 4,000 middle-aged office workers in Spain. Participants were followed for six years.

About one in four ate a high-energy breakfast, which included 20% or more of the day’s calories.

Most people in the study (70%) ate a low-energy breakfast that gave them five to 20% of their daily calorie intake.

Three percent said they skipped breakfast altogether or ate very little. This group “tended to have more generally unhealthy eating habits and a higher prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors,” said the report.

People who skipped breakfast also “had the greatest waist circumference, body mass index, blood pressure, blood lipids and fasting glucose levels,” it said.

Researchers used ultrasound technology to scan participants for signs of fatty deposits in the arteries, or early evidence of disease.

Childhood obesity Skipping breakfast has been found to be associated with weight gain. PA Wire / PA Images PA Wire / PA Images / PA Images

They found that people who ate less than 5% of their recommended daily calories at breakfast had, on average, double the amount of fatty buildup in the arteries as people who ate a high-energy breakfast.

This heightened risk of hardened arteries among people who skipped breakfast or ate little to start the day appeared independently of other factors, such as smoking, high cholesterol and physical inactivity.

Previous studies have shown that eating a healthy breakfast is linked to good health, including a lower body weight, healthy diet, and lower risk of problems with cholesterol, blood pressure and diabetes.

Skipping breakfast has also previously been shown to raise the risk of coronary artery disease.

According to Prakash Deedwania, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and author of an accompanying editorial in the journal, the study offers more evidence that skipping breakfast can be harmful to one’s health.

“Although breakfast skippers are generally attempting to lose weight, they often end up eating more and unhealthy foods later in the day. Skipping breakfast can cause hormonal imbalances and alter circadian rhythms,” said Deedwania.

“That breakfast is the most important meal of the day has been proven right in light of this evidence.”

Read: ‘We lost €1m when an unhappy customer rang Joe Duffy. I still have nightmares’ >

Read: HIV diagnoses rose again last year with 508 new cases >

Author
View 43 comments
Close
43 Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic. Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy here before taking part.
Leave a Comment
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Dara O'Brien
    Favourite Dara O'Brien
    Report
    Jun 3rd 2020, 10:36 PM

    Ah here, ye’re just making stuff up now lads.

    You’re either immune or not – immunity is not job specific. If you need healthcare workers back regardless then just say it, there’s a danger that people will start picking things up wrong if you just keep making stuff up.

    431
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute daveyt
    Favourite daveyt
    Report
    Jun 3rd 2020, 11:15 PM

    @Dara O’Brien: all they care about is the rosters in hospitals being filled, if a healthcare worker who has been infected and re-exposed via close contact (which is very likely) they don’t have to quarantine themselves for 2 weeks and the hospital can function as normal, no science behind it just ignorance

    98
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Seán O'Sullivan
    Favourite Seán O'Sullivan
    Report
    Jun 4th 2020, 12:57 AM

    @daveyt: not exact science no but calculated risk based on science

    11
    See 2 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Sean Gallagher
    Favourite Sean Gallagher
    Report
    Jun 4th 2020, 3:00 AM

    @Seán O’Sullivan: telling people they are immune is NOT a calculated risk. Either you have a scientific basis for saying it or not. If they do, then it extends to everyone. If they don’t it’s utter nonsense and should be withdrawn. Health care workers are just as likely to catch it on close contact as everyone else. They also happen to be more likely to come into contact with it.

    It’s utterly disingenuous to make it one rule for one and not for others. I sincerely hope the unions get involved at this point and call b*llsh*t as they should.

    This advice could endanger health care workers, their families and anyone else the come into contact with, including their patients.

    34
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute William Bryan
    Favourite William Bryan
    Report
    Jun 4th 2020, 2:27 PM

    @daveyt: happened where I worked, positive result from one staff, the rest of ye keep working its a grey area

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute a politicians promise is as good as a lie
    Favourite a politicians promise is as good as a lie
    Report
    Jun 3rd 2020, 10:46 PM

    What a load of bollox..just like the 2, 5 and soon 20 km limits all makey up… To hear simple Simon on the radio when asked about should the 20km limit be skipped and allowed people travel everywhere he said he felt it in his gut it was the wrong time…. No scientific evidence to back these travel restrictions

    164
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Gavin Conran
    Favourite Gavin Conran
    Report
    Jun 3rd 2020, 11:02 PM

    @a politicians promise is as good as a lie: The 2, 5 and 20km limits are to contain clusters. If there is an outbreak during the 5km limit, then, if everyone is staying inside their areas, it should be contained and make the trace work a lot easier.

    This immunity thing though I cant make heads or tails of.

    65
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Martin Woods
    Favourite Martin Woods
    Report
    Jun 4th 2020, 5:31 AM

    @Gavin Conran: but you can travel any amount of kilometres to work so that throws your thinking out the window

    25
    See 3 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute John Doyle
    Favourite John Doyle
    Report
    Jun 4th 2020, 8:08 AM

    @a politicians promise is as good as a lie: “no scientific evidence” did you not read that he feels it in his gut?

    3
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute ValerieSP
    Favourite ValerieSP
    Report
    Jun 4th 2020, 6:34 PM

    @a politicians promise is as good as a lie: really? How do you know the Scientific evidence or perhaps you are in fact a Scientist in which case your comment just might be viable

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute ValerieSP
    Favourite ValerieSP
    Report
    Jun 4th 2020, 6:38 PM

    @a politicians promise is as good as a lie: what’s with the Simple Simon?? Not nice and unhelpful

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Anthony Whelan
    Favourite Anthony Whelan
    Report
    Jun 3rd 2020, 10:56 PM

    Just now on the tonight show Prof Paul Moynagh (maynooth) says tests should have cost €15 each . Our boys (who some think are playing a blinder) are paying €200 per test.

    88
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Daniel Dunne
    Favourite Daniel Dunne
    Report
    Jun 3rd 2020, 11:01 PM

    @Anthony Whelan: It’s easy to spend other people’s money when you’re the government.

    67
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Cormac Laffan
    Favourite Cormac Laffan
    Report
    Jun 4th 2020, 7:11 AM

    @Anthony Whelan: It’s the same crowd we booted out of office, doing the same thing we booted them out for.
    #OurLivesMatter

    18
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Daniel Dunne
    Favourite Daniel Dunne
    Report
    Jun 3rd 2020, 10:59 PM

    Clever coronavirus knows if you’re a healthcare worker or not. It also knows if you were protesting on Monday or not. Magic.

    66
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Lydia McLoughlin
    Favourite Lydia McLoughlin
    Report
    Jun 3rd 2020, 11:08 PM

    And this is why the general population will start to do their own thing.. making it up as they go along!

    60
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Adam Conroy
    Favourite Adam Conroy
    Report
    Jun 4th 2020, 12:12 AM

    This makes no sense. Are they just making this stuff up as they go along?

    31
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute EvieXVI
    Favourite EvieXVI
    Report
    Jun 3rd 2020, 10:44 PM

    Enough already!!! The immune system of healthcare workers is the same as that of non-healthcare workers. Please stop treating people like idiots.

    168
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Isabel Oliveira
    Favourite Isabel Oliveira
    Report
    Jun 4th 2020, 12:35 AM

    Yeah .. if only healthcare staff lived 24/7 in hospitals and couldn’t infect the community and patients if only they had magical powers not to fall ill and suffer themselves . What in the name of Christ is wrong with the CMO, the HSE and the government ? Criminal !

    35
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Martin Harte
    Favourite Martin Harte
    Report
    Jun 3rd 2020, 10:44 PM

    Acting the fu€k now so they are

    84
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Joe
    Favourite Joe
    Report
    Jun 3rd 2020, 10:56 PM

    WTF

    43
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Oracle Steve
    Favourite Oracle Steve
    Report
    Jun 3rd 2020, 11:13 PM

    Pure clowns

    36
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Kartz
    Favourite Kartz
    Report
    Jun 4th 2020, 9:50 AM

    So in Ireland, the CMO has discretionary powers to decide who can become immune and who cannot!

    13
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Davy MacIomhair
    Favourite Davy MacIomhair
    Report
    Jun 4th 2020, 8:16 AM

    Absolute horse sh!t. I’m a nurse, I know of more than one staff member who tested positive, recovered, then tested positive a second time and was considerably sicker second time round.

    19
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Gill James
    Favourite Gill James
    Report
    Jun 4th 2020, 3:33 PM

    @Davy MacIomhair: I wonder if Covid 19 perhaps behaves in the same way that Borrelia aka Lyme disease sometimes does. Goes to ground in the body’s organs and is then no longer detectable in the blood – regularly shapeshifting and creating a biofilm to evade the immune system , so that even after extended oral antibiotic treatment and a subsequent blood test which proves negative – waves of various symptoms recur and sometimes to a serious degree for years.

    3
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute joan kelly
    Favourite joan kelly
    Report
    Jun 4th 2020, 1:23 AM

    The world and his mother has gone nuts

    16
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Agenda21
    Favourite Agenda21
    Report
    Jun 4th 2020, 2:59 AM

    @joan kelly: gone to hell in a hand basket

    8
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute 8-Bit-Relic
    Favourite 8-Bit-Relic
    Report
    Jun 3rd 2020, 10:45 PM

    *hust*bullshit*hust*

    38
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute William Bryan
    Favourite William Bryan
    Report
    Jun 4th 2020, 2:25 PM

    Heard it all now as a Health care worker, this alarms me but now the grey area is explained, Health care workers are now deemed as collateral damage, they are really clueless, BTW only have sex with one close contact, Tony says

    3
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Noel Healy
    Favourite Noel Healy
    Report
    Jun 3rd 2020, 10:43 PM

    Christ!!!! The cracks are showing with poor old Dr Tony. So healthcare staff aren’t part of the general population now? The old power has his brain fried.

    1
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.

Leave a commentcancel

 
JournalTv
News in 60 seconds