Skipping Breakfast Increases Risks for Heart Disease? Not Really…
So I was making my way around the internet (as I do on occasion), when I came across a discussion on skipping breakfast…and you know how much I like to jump into those!
In the comments it was the same old lines of “starvation mode”, “crashing metabolism”, “lose all your muscle” and the other usual mainstream fear based reactions that come with the thought of not eating all day (of course we know that not to be true). However one did stand out as new to me.
I saw someone mention “research has shown the skipping breakfast increases the risks for heart disease”. OK, this was something I had to look into myself. Although I like to call myself “2 Meal Mike” and promote breakfast as being “overrated”, I’m also like every other person out there and want to just be healthy and happy. So I’m open for discussion on anything even when it comes to eating breakfast.
So off I went to look up the relationship of skipping breakfast and heart disease, and these mainstream headlines are what I came across.
Skipping breakfast too often can put you at risk of heart disease (at the Daily Mail)
Skipping Breakfast Linked to Heart Disease, Diabetes (another mainstream health site)
Wow, that seems like a pretty serious accusation. It’s like the idea of “skipping breakfast” has already been left holding the smoking gun and found guilty. However I also realize that plenty of news nowadays seems to be more based on shocking accusations, even if the title isn’t really 100% true.
Continuing on with one of the articles it goes into:
If you think skipping breakfast isn’t a big deal—who has the time, right?—you might reconsider that after hearing about some new research. In the study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Australian researchers examined whether breakfast skippers are setting themselves up for heart disease and diabetes.
So there was an actual study, but what did it really focus on? Well when you dig into the details, it paints a different picture.
Getting into the Details
The study first of all did not actually focus on rates of actual diagnosed heart disease, just some associated “risk factors”. It looked at the eating patterns of children and followed up with them as adults. Risk factors were things such as waist circumference, weight/bodyfat, fasting insulin and cholesterol numbers. What they really came to conclude was:
Turns out those who tended to skip breakfast as kids and adults had a larger waist circumference and significantly higher insulin, total cholesterol, and LDL cholesterol levels—all warning signs for heart disease and diabetes—than those who regularly ate breakfast as kids and adults.
But if you do continue to read down, here’s where the real facts are:
Scientists think one reason is they are more likely to snack on sugary foods and less likely to exercise while having a lower intake of fibre, vitamins and minerals.
and
Previous research has clearly shown other pitfalls of skipping breakfast: A meta-study of 47 individual studies found that people who skip breakfast are more likely to smoke or drink, more likely to follow fad diets, and less likely to exercise.
Poor Choices are Really to Blame
So here’s the cliff notes on what they are really trying to say. If you skip breakfast, it may be possible that you are also more likely to follow an “unhealthy” lifestyle, eat crappy foods, gain weight, smoke, drink and not exercise. Those can increase the variables known as risks of heart disease.
But the original title of ”skipping breakfast increases risks of heart disease” is actually not a 100% true statement. As the study did not properly prove that as the direct link. It’s just an observation made in a small group of people (and they even missed out on 2/3 of the people as adults) without even taking into consideration monitoring all their food choices and lifestyle factors.
The real message is that if you eat less quality of foods (more processed), gain weight, smoke and drink more all because you skip breakfast, then perhaps you need a new plan. If eating breakfast keeps you more focused on eating higher quality of foods (real foods), overall less calories, helps you to exercise and paying attention to your lifestyle, then by all means keep on eating it.
On the flip side I know that I haven’t eaten breakfast regularly in what seems like decades. However I also stay leaner, feel healthier, eat more real foods now than I did in the past (I ate way more junk when I was in “breakfast” mode), and enjoy being active and exercise . So using the same parameters of this study, my heart disease risks have not increased (decreased if anything) even while hardly ever having breakfast.
(In fact periods of skipping meals with intermittent fasting have shown to lower fasting insulin, inflammation and many other health markers)
While not eating a big or any breakfast may not be for everyone, skipping it is not seen to be a “direct” factor in increasing heart disease either. How you eat (do you binge or control your food intake) and your lifestyle (exercise, smoking, drinking) the rest of the day is where the real results happen.
For many of you this is probably nothing that new, but there are still people out there believing in ideas like this without really understanding all the details. Hopefully I’ve helped to clear this up, so people can understand all the facts and start choosing how they want to eat.
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I love articles that bring common sense thinking to all the scare tactics by the gurus. Anyone using their brain should be able to realize that it’s just not reasonable to think that skipping breakfast will increase risk of anything (except hunger), much less heart disease. If that were the case, why wouldn’t skipping lunch or dinner also increase the risk of something? Maybe skipping those meals increases the risk of things not so severe.
How ’bout this headline;
Studies Show Skipping Lunch Increases Your Risk Of Ear Aches
You’re absolutely right though. And if people would just read and think things through as you’ve done here, we could clear up a lot of nonsense.
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I have practiced IF regularly for about 5 yrears. Personally, I believe meal frequencies increase the risk for diabetes because it taxes the system without allowing it to rest. I consider my first meal of the day AS my breakfast since it means ” break the fast “. Therefore it is impossible to skip breakfast. I am pre-diabetic and would no doubt be full blown diabetic if I had not used IF to help with insulin control. Doesn’t it make sense that it is eating, especially carbs of any kind, that plays haoc blood glucose and insulin ? A glucose and insulin stabilizing meal for me is a meal of some type of animal protein and low carb vegetable. I eat until I am content. There are times when I eat a lot and times when I eat a little. It depends on what my body needs for the day. I let my body decide how much I should eat.
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"2 Meal" Mike Reply:
Great story! Yes…technically you are correct, we all eat “breakfast”…mine just happens to be at anywhere from noon to 4pm.
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Thank you for posting this article. This exact issue has been a huge question for me lately. I have been trying to find someone that would know the answer to the following: What if you are coming off 20+ years of obesity, then at calorie restriction you go from “hungry for everything” to “rather not eat for days”. Does that mean your body is shutting down to starvation mode, preparing for famine or that you are finally starting to burn the fat you already have? I have lost 100 pounds but have 50-60 to go and am never hungry for breakfast. Not sure if this is from damaged metabolism or just a good thing. Would so, soooo appreciate some understanding on this so I can move forward in peace about it. Thanks again.
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"2 Meal" Mike Reply:
Starvation mode implies breaking down vital organs for energy, which is hard to do if you still have plenty of fat to burn and a good amount of amino acids in your diet. If you want a “stronger” metabolism then add in some simple resistance type of training (rebuilding muscles takes energy) and keep your other cardio to very slow and steady. Eat real foods and your body will have the necessary nutrients to go forward.
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Valerie Reply:
Thanks a million for the response. I will slow down the cardio and increase the weights for sure!
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Thanks for bringing this article to light. Typical media I’d say. Go for the head line that shocks people the most. I’ve been IFing for around five years. Fell off the wagon due to stress at work (company by out, not sure if I’d have a job. I’m back on and have lost 7lbs in 14 days.
@Valerie, awesome! job on the weight loss. I’ve found that fasting gives me more energy. I don’t think (Mike correct me if I’m wrong) missing one or two meals a day would send you into starvation mode. It would make sense that your body would start burning stored fat for fuel.
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"2 Meal" Mike Reply:
Great thing about IF, that it’s easy to pick back up and perfection isn’t the goal. Just take your next best step as I like to say. Going forward is what matters.
Starvation mode is nothing most have to really worry about unless they are eating way too low in calories over the long run. It’s more a marketing term to scare people nowadays more than reality.
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It’s crazy how some mainstream health sites are writing pretty much anything – especially bold statements like this. We all need help but with so much content out there claiming new studies…it’s hard to sift past all this stuff. Thanks for clearing things up and sharing some solid statistics to back it up. Enjoyed the article on your site.
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This sort of newspaper article makes me sad now. I haven’t eaten breakfast for over a year and feel great. Unfortunately, most people have the idea the a big breakfast is the key to healthy eating. what went wrong?
Nick
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what you’ve completely missed is the motive for anyone to fund such a study, and that because they thoroughly believe in their original hypothesis (which may have been that skipping breakfast makes you more susceptible to an unhealthy lifestyle, or in this case heat disease). the study, however vaguely, suggests that those who are more prone to skip breakfast do in fact go on to have a greater prevalence of such things are a wider waist circumference and diabetes, which as we all know are calling cards for an increase risk of atherosclerosis and dropping dead before your 40th birthday, and from this, one could infer exactly that. now, i would not usually jump to the idea as fondly as if i had been subject to it in the article in question, so i appreciate your imput, but you should understand that the results of the study do indeed still stand, and even though there is truly an epic amount of hyping and sensationism in articles that promote so called ‘groundbreaking studies’ (i just read an article in my daily paper the other day headed ‘exercise does not help you lose weight’) but i think this is one of those that can in fact heighten awareness that thinking that just because your body does not ‘feel’ like it needs to be fed upon waking, sometimes going about breaking your fast, or eating in the first two hour upon waking is a necessary thing for people to curb binging, meal time obsession and insulin slumps throughout the day. also, not to be too offensive, but it would seem that a scientific peer-reviewed study could easily stand up against the credentials of such a statement as ‘I ate way more junk when I was in “breakfast” mode’
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Coorelation does not mean causation. When will people get this???!!!
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