Is breakfast the most important meal of the day?
When I teach nutrition, I always emphasize the importance of breakfast. Break – fast really means to break the fast. Our bodies have been “fasting” since dinner the night before and we need to refuel. Some recent research from Harvard ( Circulation ) highlights how important eating breakfast every day is to our overall health. Researchers at Harvard University studied 26,902 males over age 44 and asked them if they ate or skipped breakfast. About 13% of the men studied were breakfast skippers. Over the next 16 years, 1,527 of the men suffered from fatal or non-fatal heart attacks. The breakfast skippers were 27% more likely to have coronary heart disease than the men that ate breakfast. Eating late at night was also not good for one’s health. The men that were late night eaters had a 55% higher risk of coronary heart disease. The researchers conclude that eating breakfast can help prevent heart disease but other research is needed to confirm their findings.