Can Skipping Breakfast Hurt Your Heart? (2024)

• A study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that people who did not eat breakfast were 87 percent more likely to die from cardiovascular disease and stroke than those who ate breakfast every day.
• If you have a morning ride planned, either eat your breakfast about two hours beforehand to prevent GI issues, or eat something smaller to hold you over until you are done.

In the ongoing debate about whether breakfast is best, new data is pointing towards some surprising drawbacks of missing your morning meal: Skipping breakfast may actually up your risk of heart attack or stroke, a study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology suggests.

Researchers reviewed eating habits of over 6,500 adults aged 40–75 who responded to questions about their eating habits, including frequency of eating breakfast, in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Then, they used death records to track cause of death through 2011.

Researchers found that people who did not eat breakfast were 87 percent more likely to die from cardiovascular disease than those who ate breakfast every day. In particular, breakfast skippers were more than three times as likely to die from stroke and almost 59 percent more likely to die from heart disease as people who ate breakfast every day.

The researchers aren’t exactly sure what’s behind the link, but they believe there may be several factors at play. For one, skipping breakfast can cause overeating later in the day, which can lead to weight gain—something that has been known to up your odds of heart disease. But it’s also possible that skipping breakfast can have negative effects in your body, like decreasing your insulin sensitivity. That means your cells aren’t able to absorb blood sugar as readily, which can raise your blood sugar levels and increase your risk of diabetes. That’s something that has been linked to cardiovascular disease, too.

On the flip side, eating breakfast can help regulate appetite and blood sugar, and even help lower blood pressure—protecting against heart disease.

The good news? Adding breakfast to your routine is a simple change that can have a big impact on your cardio health, according to study author Wei Bao, Ph.D., assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Iowa.

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“When we talk about dietary change, it is often difficult to make a behavior change, like cutting out an unhealthy food you really like or eating something you don’t like,” Bao told Bicycling. “In comparison to dietary change, adding breakfast will be much easier for people. It should be part of a healthy lifestyle. It’s easy to do.”

The current study builds on previous research showing the drawbacks of skipping your morning meal, too. For instance, a 2017 study also published in the Journal of American College of Cardiology found that skipping breakfast may increase the likelihood of atherosclerosis, or the hardening of the arteries that can up your chances of having a heart attack.

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The findings here suggest that breakfast may be best if you want to keep your heart healthy. But what if you have a morning ride planned? Eating a full breakfast before you work out can wreak havoc on your GI system, especially if you eat fatty or fiber-rich foods. Still, as we have reported before, if you are working out for a longer time, like more than an hour, you may want to either eat a breakfast two hours beforehand to fuel yourself, or eat something smaller closer to the time you leave.

Then, you can eat your more substantial breakfast when you’re done. Although the study did not get specifics of the timing of meals, Bao said the key is not skipping a meal between waking and lunch—so eating after your workout can be just fine if you can’t stomach a real meal beforehand.