Skipping breakfast not a good idea, may increase heart disease risk: American Journal of Cardiology

Skipping breakfast can cause heart disease, finds a new study.

Japan: Breakfast is considered as the most important meal of the day that helps you replenish glucose supply and provides essential nutrients to get you going for the entire day. But some health enthusiasts skip it considering it to be beneficial for weight control.

A recent study published in The American Journal of Cardiology does not consider skipping breakfast as a good idea as it can increase the risk of heart disease.

Hisato Takagi, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Shizuoka Medical Center, Shizuoka, Japan, and colleagues performed the first meta-analysis of currently available epidemiological studies to determine whether skipping breakfast is associated with heart disease.

For the purpose, the researchers searched for online databases. They identified eight eligible studies with a total of 284,484 participants and included it in the present meta-analysis.

Adjusted (if unavailable, unadjusted) hazard ratios (HRs) or odds ratios (ORs) with their confidence interval (CIs) of prevalence, incidence, or mortality for skipping breakfast were extracted from each study.

Also Read: No breakfast and late dinner may precipitate another heart attack after first one: ESC

Key findings of the study include:

• The primary meta-analysis combining HRs for Q1 (first quartile, most skipping breakfast) versus Q4 (fourth quartile, least skipping breakfast) from 3 studies together with other HRs/ORs demonstrated that skipping breakfast was associated with the significantly increased risk of heart disease.


• In sensitivity analyses combining HRs for Q2 (second quartile, second-most skipping breakfast) versus Q4 or HRs for Q3 (third quartile, second least skipping breakfast) versus Q4 from 3 studies together with other HRs/ORs, the association of skipping breakfast with the increased risk of heart disease in the primary meta-analysis was confirmed.

Also Read: Skipping breakfast may increase risk of type 2 diabetes: Journal of Nutrition

The findings support the importance of taking the first meal of the day in promoting cardiovascular health and preventing heart disease.

To read the complete study log on to https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjcard.2019.06.016