Breakfast | Good for the heart!

BREAKFAST LIKE AN EMPEROR!

There is an old saying: eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a king and dinner like a pauper. Whoever once made this recommendation was certainly not aware of the result of a recent study at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, which was published in the ?Circulature? (2013; 128: 337-343) But if you consider the impact of dietary habits on heart health, you can definitely endorse the recommendation.

The study was based on data from the "Health Professionals Follow-up Study". This is one of the large US prospective observational studies in which a large number of adults are regularly questioned about their lifestyle and eating habits in order to investigate the influence on their health. The researchers now wanted to know what effect the timing of meals has on heart health, taking into account other risk factors such as obesity, physical activity and smoking.

HEART DISEASE AND OBESITY

When evaluating the health data, the scientists found that men who started the day without breakfast had a 27 percent increased risk of developing coronary heart disease during the 16-year observation period. If they ate their main meal very late, the risk was even 55 percent higher.

Leah Cahill, head of the study, believes the problem is that people compensate for their hunger by missing breakfast with unhealthy snacks. Skipping breakfast increased the risk of heart disease, even if those affected did not eat a large meal in the evening.

Cahill believes that over the course of the day, you will consume more calories than you would have eaten with a healthy breakfast. This will damage your sugar metabolism in the long term. Similar studies have shown in the past that skipping breakfast can trigger other health problems such as obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes.

To protect your heart, Cahill recommends not eating anything late in the evening, but instead eating a hearty breakfast of wholegrain toast, cereal and fresh fruit - just as befits an emperor.