Breakfast-Skipping May Lead to Heart Attacks According to Study

Eating breakfast has been found to help reduce the risk of having heart attacks, according to a new study.

A study involving men between the ages of 45 to 82 years old who were known to regularly skip breakfast showed a risk level of 27 percent of encountering a heart attack. While older men were the main subjects of the study, the proponents think that this could also be applicable to other men outside the set age range.

Forbes, however, notes that the study was observational and should not be seen as a cause-and-effect correlation between breakfast consumption and heart attack risk.

The research originally appeared in the July 22 issue of journal Circulation.

In 1992, some 27,000 men were evaluated about their eating habits. The results showed that around 13 percent said that it had become routine for them to skip breakfast. The men interviewed were at the minimum 45 years old and were professionals. In the next 16 years, more than 1,500 of those interviewed suffered from either fatal or non-fatal heart attacks.

The study also involved variables like alcohol use, diabetes, diet, high blood pressure, and smoking, which amounted to around 27 percent increased risk because of skipping breakfast.

The study goes on to say that younger men were more prone to skipping breakfast compared with men who were older.

Earlier research has shown that there was a direct connection between skipping breakfast and the development of diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity, which may lead to a dangerous metabolic syndrome, which in turn may lead to heart disease.

However, the difference between this older study to Circulation's article is the direct connection of skipping breakfast to the risk of having a heart attack.

According to the research, people who don't eat breakfast regularly tend to make up for skipping the meal by eating larger meals later during the day, sometimes later in the night.