Skip Breakfast? A Heart Attack May Be in Your Future

Saw a disturbing snippet on CBS this morning about people who skip breakfast.  Apparently, they're at higher risk for heart attacks.

Breakfast is good for a lot of things.  It helps you get prepared for the day.  It can help you lose weight (even though that seems counterintuitive).  Sometimes mine even tastes good.

But the new study finds that it's quite possible that skipping breakfast can hurt your health.

"Researchers found an association between skipping breakfast and having a 27 percent higher risk of dying from coronary heart disease or experiencing a heart attack," according to The Huffington Post. This held true even if you were an exerciser, had low blood pressure, didn't smoke or drink, and had an average BMI, and no other health-related heart risks

Even scarier, there was a link between the time you ate and the time you went to bed.  "Those who ate right before bedtime had 55 percent higher risks of coronary heart disease," The Huffington Post relates.  So much for my nighttime treat, Weight Watcher ice cream bars.
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Now, when I was a teenager (and verging on anorexia), I always skipped breakfast.  But over time I began to learn that breakfast helped me think better and I didn't get quite so hungry (and be tempted to snack on chips and sweets the rest of the day).

But if you don't eat breakfast, you're not alone.  Approximately 10% of Americans don't.  Many obese people also don't.  But eating some carbohydrates and fiber can keep you from getting tired, the Post goes on.  It may even lower your cholesterol (if you eat the right breakfast, that is).

So why should this be so?  CBS notes that it could be because people who don't eat breakfast may have other unhealthy behaviors -- like smoking, or lack of exercise, or weight (even though skipping these don't prevent healthy people from having heart risks, either, it appears).

Eat breakfast.  So you have to get up a few minutes earlier.  It's time well-spent.  And it might even give you a little more time with your loved ones.  Scratch that.  Not in my house in the morning.


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