A new study has reported that skipping breakfast could increase the risk of heart attack.
The study found that older men who skipped breakfast had a 27 percent higher risk of getting a heart attack than those who ate a meal in the morning. The study was done by the Harvard School of Public Health. ABC News reported that there have been other studies that showed a link between breakfast and obesity as well as other health problems. Eric Rimm, who is one of the authors of the study said to ABC News that there have been no studies that "looked at long-term risk of heart attack."
The research was published in the journal, Circulation and during the study almost 27,000 men were surveyed in 1992. About 13 percent of those men said they skipped breakfast regularly. All of them were educated health professionals and at least 45 years old. Over the next 16 years, 1,527 of those men had fatal or no fatal heart attackes. 171 of them said they regulary skipped breakfast. This means that over 7 percent of the men who skipped breakfast had heart attacks, compared to 6 percent who ate breakfast.
"Experts aren't certain, but here's what they think: People who don't eat breakfast are more likely to be hungrier later in the day and eat larger meals. Those meals mean the body must process a larger amount of calories in a shorter amount of time. That can spike sugar levels in the blood and perhaps lead to clogged arteries," reported ABC News.
However, the researchers didn't ask what participants in the study ate for breakfast.
"We don't know whether it's the timing or content of breakfast that's important. It's probably both," said Andrew Odegaard to ABC News, a University of Minnesota researcher. "Generally, people who eat breakfast tend to eat a healthier diet."
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
