Skipping Breakfast May Lead to Weight Gain and Heart
Disease
By Jennifer Warner
WebMD Medical News, February 2005
Skipping breakfast may put you on the fast track to weight gain and
heart disease, according to a new study.
Researchers found that healthy women who skipped breakfast for two
weeks ate more during the rest of the day, developed higher "bad"
LDL cholesterol levels, and were less sensitive to insulin than
women who ate breakfast every day.
High LDL cholesterol levels and impaired insulin sensitivity are
both major risk factors for heart disease.
Although previous studies on the effects of eating or skipping
breakfast in obese people may have produced conflicting results,
researchers say the findings of this study show that skipping
breakfast may lead to weight gain as well as increase the risk of
heart disease in healthy people over time.
Researchers say skipping breakfast has become more common among
adults in recent years, perhaps due to efforts to lose weight or
time pressures in the morning. But at the same time, the prevalence
of obesity and overweight has also dramatically increased.
Eat Breakfast, Eat Less Later
In the study, which appears in the February issue of the American
Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers examined the effects of
eating or skipping breakfast on calories eaten and burned
throughout the day as well as circulating insulin, glucose, and
cholesterol levels in 10 healthy women of normal weight.
For two weeks, the women ate a breakfast consisting of a bowl of
whole-grain cereal (Bran Flakes from Kellogg's) with 2% milk
between 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. and then had a midmorning snack of
a candy bar (Kit Kat from Nestle) between 10:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.
The women then ate two additional meals and snacks at predetermined
times every day and kept records of what they ate.
After a two-week break, the same women then followed the same
protocol but skipped the early morning meal and had the cereal at
lunch time (between noon and 12:30 p.m.). They then ate the other
two meals and snacks at the predetermined times for another two
weeks.
The results showed that when the women ate breakfast, they ate
about 100 fewer calories per day (an average of 1,665 calories per
day vs. 1,756 calories per day over a three-day measurement
period).
Researchers also found that total and LDL "bad" cholesterol levels
were significantly lower in the women who ate breakfast. Total
cholesterol was 121 mg/dL in the breakfast group compared with 133
in the other group. LDL was 60 in the breakfast group and 70 in the
nonbreakfast group.
The women who ate breakfast also had a better insulin response to
eating, suggesting that their risk of diabetes was lower.
The women's body weight didn't change significantly between the two
groups during these two-week periods, but researchers say the
results offer a potential mechanism by which skipping breakfast
could lead to weight gain in the longer term.
In addition, the results show that the negative effects of skipping
breakfast on cholesterol and insulin levels may also increase the
women's risk of heart disease over time.