BREAKFAST is the most important meal of the day so don’t skip it!
Sugary cereals and high-fat muffins may not be the breakfast of champions but skipping the first meal of the day seems to be even worse.
A new study reported by HealthScout News suggests that those who said they regularly eat breakfast are up to 55% less likely to develop problems such as diabetes or obesity than those people who left the house on an empty stomach.
Although the best results came from eating whole-grain cereals and other nutritious breakfast food, “eating something for breakfast is better than not eating at all,” said study researcher Linda van Horn, professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University in the US.
The study, to be presented on 6 March at the American Heart Association’s annual conference on cardiovascular disease and prevention, indicates that people who eat something early in the morning are less likely to fill up on junk later on.
Van Horn noticed that she is much more tempted by doughnuts with her coffee when she hasn’t eaten in the morning.
“People who eat before they leave in the morning, tend not to snack a lot more during the rest of the day.”
The researchers used data from people enrolled in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study.
When it started in 1992, those enrolled were 25 to 37 years of age.
The study included 1 884 black and 2 059 white people who reported on their breakfast habits.
Compared to those who did not eat breakfast regularly, those who did were 37% to 55% less likely to develop insulin resistance – a problem that frequently predicts future diabetes and obesity.
Researchers noted that eating breakfast protected all the participants except for black women but the researchers can’t explain why.
Alice Lichtenstein, professor of nutrition at Tufts University in Boston, said: “The study discovered lots of interesting information but it shows we need to know a lot more about people’s dietary habits.”
– HEALTH24.COM
