Eating Breakfast May Do a Heart Good
(NY, Reuters Health, 2/25/05)

Dr. Hamid R. Farshchi of the University of Nottingham, England, and team, put 10 lean women on two diet regimens for two weeks each. The women either had bran flakes with low-fat milk in the morning followed by two meals and two snacks during the rest of the day; or they had no breakfast and ate the cereal around noon followed by two meals and two snacks throughout the remainder of the day. Both regimens allowed the women a mid-morning cookie. After each two-week period, the investigators checked the subjects' metabolic reactions by testing blood drawn before and after they drank a milkshake. After the non-breakfast period, the women's cholesterol levels tended to test higher and their insulin sensitivity fell. Furthermore, the participants were likelier to ingest more calories on the days when they skipped breakfast. These findings suggest that not eating breakfast can have a longterm negative health impact, since impaired insulin sensitivity and high LDL cholesterol are both risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

(American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, February 2005)