The Effect of Different Breakfast Habits on Cardiovascular Health

By: Sean Sachdeva, University of Florida

In today’s society, people are often too busy to worry about breakfast and consider coffee as their go-to meal in the morning. For many years now doctors and researchers have claimed that the most important meal of the day is breakfast and according to data from around the world breakfast is actually the most skipped meal of the day. What many people don’t know is that skipping breakfast can actually be very unhealthy for the body especially the heart. In this blog, we will look at a study conducted by the Journal of  The American College of Cardiology which looks at the importance of breakfast in cardiovascular health.

This study specifically looks at the effect different breakfast habits have on the cardiovascular system dealing specifically with atherosclerosis disease. Atherosclerosis is one of the most prominent heart diseases today and is often the result of hospitalization if left alone for a long period of time. What is atherosclerosis? It is basically the build-up of a plague which is made up of low-density lipoprotein fat (LDL) also known as “bad” cholesterol within the arteries, in which in severe cases can lead to heart attacks and even strokes. Low-density lipoprotein is known as “bad” cholesterol because of its ability to build up within the arteries surrounding the heart. LDL has a counterpart which is high-density lipoprotein (HDL) also know as “good” cholesterol because of its ability to carry cholesterol to the liver to be processed instead of building up within the arteries.

The importance of this study is that it allows us to know what eating habits will constitute the best way for our body to gain nutrients and remain healthy. When the experiment was conducted three patterns of breakfast consumption were tested in which they included: high-energy breakfast (HBF), low-energy breakfast (LBF), and no breakfast at all (SBF). Each of these patterns relates to a percentage of a person’s daily energy intake with the high-energy breakfast having the highest percentage of daily energy compared to a zero percent for no breakfast at all. 4,052 participants were randomly selected and had the initial imaging of their arterial thicknesses recorded and their BMIs including blood pressure was recorded as well. Imaging of arterial thicknesses consists of usually an x-ray or MRI photo which shows how much plaque is blocking the main arteries going to the heart. BMI is known as the body mass index which takes into account height and weight which is converted to a standard BMI number. The participants were separated based on their breakfast consumption which was categorized into the three groups as mentioned before.

The researchers within this study wanted to see if the lack of breakfast which would yield no energy intake would increase the participant's percentage of arterial thickness in the arteries and to see if their BMI number increased as well. If both of these factors increased then it is a clear sign of the increase in the prevalence of atherosclerosis. Over a month participants within each group went about eating in their different breakfast patterns and it is important to note no other factors were held constant for this study. During that month, the participant's blood pressures were measured continuously to track the progression of hypertension. Hypertension is commonly known as high blood pressure and it usually due to the prevalence of atherosclerosis. The more plaque that the arteries have the harder it is for blood to pass through thus making the heart work more resulting in high blood pressure.

After the month-long study, each of the participants within each of the three experimental groups: HBF, LDF, and SBF had their arterial thicknesses and BMIs screened again. The results showed a steady increase in thickness and blood pressure in the SBF group which had no breakfast at all. Based on those results, the researchers confirmed that the SBF group had a 10% higher prevalence of atherosclerosis than the HBF and LDF groups. The overall prevalence of each of the three groups combined was still lower than the SBF alone. From these calculations, it was safe to say that the lack of a morning energy diet can result in an increase in atherosclerosis disease and an increased risk upon the heart.

From these findings, the researchers explained that due to only a lunch and dinner diet the body is more prone to store extra fat and nutrients because of the lack of breakfast in the morning. The body needs nutrients especially in the morning because it is the time the body starts to function and begin the daily metabolic functions. Because of the lack of breakfast, the body trains itself in a way to absorb more fat so it’ll have enough energy for the next morning without breakfast. This process is known as adaptability. Stated by Uzhova et. al (2017), “Skipping breakfast could serve as a marker of unhealthy dietary and lifestyle behavior and is associated with the presence of noncoronary and generalized atherosclerosis...”

References

Uzhova et al., I. (2017). The Importance of Breakfast in Atherosclerosis Disease. Journal of the American College of Cardiology,70(15), 1832-1842. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2017.08.027

Picture by Oregan State University: https://flic.kr/p/Gm6a2J