The study was conducted by Wei Bao, assistant professor of epidemiology in the University of Iowa College of Public Health. It showed that people who never ate breakfast had an 87 percent higher risk of death caused by cardiovascular disease than those who ate breakfast every day.
The report was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and supports the heart-healthy benefits that come with eating breakfast each morning. Consuming these calories in the morning helps to jumpstart the body’s metabolism and provide the energy and nutrients needed to begin the day.
Bao noted that while health care providers have known about the health benefits of breakfast for years, fewer people say that they make the morning meal part of their daily routine.
This study, Bao says, is the first of its kind to evaluate the meal’s impact on the risk of cardiovascular death. Researchers analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, an annual survey from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study incorporated data from 6,550 Americans between the ages of 40 and 75 years between 1988 and 1994 who were asked about their breakfast habits.
Bao also noted that those who said they skipped breakfast were also more likely to engage in other unhealthy lifestyle habits, including drinking, overeating, smoking, not getting enough exercise and more. These markers, Bao notes, can also lead to increased cardiovascular disease risk.
As a whole, the study’s authors found a significant association between skipping breakfast and cardiovascular mortality, even after adjusting for these other lifestyle factors.
For more information about the study, click here.
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