Skipping Breakfast could lead to Heart Attack

A new study shows that men who skip breakfast regularly are at a 27 per cent higher risk of a heart attack or death from coronary heart disease in comparison to those who don’t. Food frequency was analysed by researchers through a questionnaire data and tracked health outcomes from 16 years, which was from 1992 to 2008. It was done on male health professionals between the ages of 45-82.

The study also said that men who reported not eating breakfast were younger than those who did and were in fact more likely to be smokers, employed full time, unmarried, less physically active and drank more alcohol. Also those men who ate late at night, eating after going to bed had a 55 per cent higher coronary heart disease risk than those who didn’t. But the researchers weren’t really convinced about this being a major public concern as only a few men had reported this behaviour.

.“Skipping breakfast may lead to one or more risk factors, including obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes, which may in turn lead to a heart attack over time,” Leah E. Cahill, Ph.D., study lead author and Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Mass said.

Men who reported eating breakfast ate on average one more time per day than those who skipped breakfast. This implies that those who abstained from eating breakfast were not eating additional make up meals later in the day.

The study was published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation.

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