We’ve all heard the paradoxical warning that skipping breakfast makes it harder to lose weight. Now, from researchers at Harvard Medical School, comes a more straightforward admonition: skipping breakfast can raise your risk of heart disease. A news release from the American Heart Association reports that researchers who analyzed food frequency questionnaire data and tracked health outcomes for 16 years (1992-2008) on 26,902 male health professionals ages 45-82 found that:
- Men who reported they skipped breakfast had a 27 percent higher risk of heart attack or death from coronary heart disease than those who reported they didn’t.
- The men who reported not eating breakfast were younger than those who did, and were more likely to be smokers, employed full time, unmarried, less physically active and drank more alcohol.
- Men who reported eating late at night (eating after going to bed) had a 55 percent higher coronary heart disease risk than those who didn’t.