Fight Diabetes, Obesity By Eating Breakfast

People who eat breakfast are significantly less likely to be obese and diabetic than those who usually don't, according to new research.

In their study, Harvard Medical School researchers found that obesity and insulin resistance syndrome rates were 35 to 50 percent lower among people who ate breakfast every day compared to people who often skipped it.

The research was presented Thursday at a conference of the American Heart Association in Miami.

"Our results suggest that breakfast may really be the most important meal of the day," said Mark Pereira, a research associate at Children's Hospital in Boston and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. "It appears that breakfast may play an important role in reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease."

Researchers studied data on 1,198 black and 1,633 white participants of the CARDIA study, whose breakfast habits and risk factors for heart disease were assessed over an eight-year period.

Overall, about 47 percent of white volunteers and 22 percent of black volunteers reported daily breakfast consumption.

"Dietary patterns are known to differ widely, probably due to cultural differences, by race and ethnicity and even between men and women," Pereira said.

Pereira said eating breakfast might have beneficial effects on appetite, insulin resistance and energy metabolism.

"Just the habit of filling your belly in the morning might help people control their hunger throughout the day so they might be less likely to overeat in the morning or at lunch," he said. "Or there might be a hormonal basis for some of the effects because the hormone insulin controls blood sugar, and blood sugar level is related to how hungry or energetic a person feels."

Researchers also found that what kind of breakfast you eat matters. Pereira said participants who ate whole-grain cereal each day had a 15 percent reduced risk for insulin resistance syndrome.

Whole-grain cereals were defined as those that list a whole grain or bran first in the ingredients list or those that contain a whole grain and have at least 2 grams of fiber per serving.

Insulin resistance syndrome is a metabolic disorder that combines several factors such as obesity, high abdominal body fat, high blood pressure, and high fasting levels of blood sugar or the hormone insulin, which helps the body store glucose properly.

Although people with insulin resistance syndrome may not yet have diabetes, their bodies do not use glucose efficiently, which puts them at an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease.