Why missing breakfast is bad

Study explores. One Comment. Related Articles Sitting at home vs. Big dinner, bad nutrition? Study explores eating in the evening. A leading-edge research firm focused on digital transformation. Women's Health. Primary Care. Mental Health. More Button Icon Circle with three vertical dots. It indicates a way to see more nav menu items inside the site menu by triggering the side menu to open and close. Kelly Burch. Skipping breakfast may be bad for your heart, as research has found that it is associated with risk factors for heart disease, such as high blood pressure, smoking, and diabetes.

Research has also found that skipping breakfast is associated with a greater risk of death from cardiovascular disease, even when controlling for other factors. Overall, eating meals at regular intervals is the best approach for heart health — here's what you can eat for a quick, heart-healty breakfast.

The research was supported by a regional dairy association. Breakfast often provides vitamin C through fruit, calcium through milk, and vitamins, minerals, and fiber through fortified cereals. The nutrients breakfast-skippers miss out on providing a range of functions for the body, such as keeping bones strong and making healthy red blood cells, to name a few. Adults who skipped breakfast also followed a lower-quality diet for the rest of the day.

They were more likely to eat added sugars, carbs and total fat. Part of the reason why is that they snacked more. Despite the change in scheduling, the calorie content and breakdown of carbohydrates, fat and protein were the same on all three days.

On days with a skipped meal, the other two meals had extra calories to make up for it. Each day, blood samples were collected frequently from 7 a. They found that people burned more calories over a hour period when they extended their overnight fast by skipping either lunch 41 more calories or dinner 91 more calories , compared with the three-meals-a-day schedule. These findings are in line with other studies on time-restricted eating.

They found no difference in hour glucose levels, insulin secretion or total physical activity between the three days. But glucose concentrations and markers of inflammation and insulin resistance were higher after lunch on breakfast-skipping days. People also oxidized more fat, meaning their bodies broke down more of their stored fat reserves, on days when they skipped breakfast.

That may sound like a good thing, but the researchers say it could have a downside. Courtney Peterson, assistant professor of nutrition sciences at the University of Alabama Birmingham, says that more research is needed in order to know the bottom line on breakfast.