Breakfast Is Good For Your Heart

By now, everyone has repeatedly heard the mantra that breakfast is good for your health. It has been proven to help people lose weight and improve their level of focus and concentration for students in culinary programs taking exams. Now, scientists have found that skipping breakfast may not only be detrimental to your health, but may actually be dangerous! Researchers at Harvard University have found that men who regularly skipped breakfast were at a 27 percent higher risk of having a heart attack. The results, which have been published in the journal Circulation, also noted that the men were more likely to die from a coronary heart disease.

The comprehensive study followed 27,000 men for 16 years in order to get an accurate evaluation of the effects that regularly skipping the first meal of the day has on the body. The men involved had varied diets, exercise and smoking habits, so the researchers could determine if the results were universal or if they applied more to people who had pre-existing risk factors for heart disease. The researchers found that the effect of eating breakfast was overwhelmingly similar for all the men in the study and theorize that the timing of breakfast is what makes it so important.

How timing of meals affects health
In the past, skipping breakfast has been shown to lead to the development of high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes. All three of these diseases are high risk factors for having a heart attack. Breakfast is the first thing that culinary academy students eat in the morning after a full night of no food being consumed. Skipping it can lead to feasting on larger meals later on in the day and late at night that are higher in calories than if they had eaten in the morning. Snacking late at night to compensate for skipping breakfast can further raise the risk for coronary disease by 55 percent.

In order to get the best health benefits from your first meal of the day, avoid foods that are high in added sugars or saturated fats. Whole grains, proteins and fruit are all ideal breakfast foods. For a quick meal that is easy for busy  cooking students to take on-the-go, a whole grain bagel or toast topped with low-sodium peanut butter will keep you full and alert all throughout the morning.

If you like this post, please be sure to check out the following!

Breakfast Sandwich Worth $120 Debuts In Australia
Traditional Brunch Gets Revamped In 2013