{"id":610,"date":"2013-07-24T06:05:47","date_gmt":"2013-07-24T13:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bornfitness.com\/?p=610"},"modified":"2017-09-22T12:30:56","modified_gmt":"2017-09-22T19:30:56","slug":"does-skipping-breakfast-cause-heart-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bornfitness.com\/does-skipping-breakfast-cause-heart-attacks\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Skipping Breakfast Cause Heart Attacks?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Certain nutrition basics appear to be timeless regardless of your diet: Eat breakfast. Eat fruits and vegetables. Don\u2019t feast on sugary foods on a regular basis.<\/p>\n

All of this was indisputable until intermittent fasting came into the picture, and the importance of breakfast was brought into question. Or more accurately, the timing of meals was analyzed in a new way. If you’re not familiar with this style of eating,\u00a0intermittent fasting focuses on control over your appetite. It\u2019s an approach that has several variations, such as offering an eating window during the day (think “Lean Gains 16\/8” where you only eat for 8 hours a day), or days where you don\u2019t eat at all. (A la Eat Stop Eat<\/em>, with one weekly 24-hour fast.) Some methods even combine fasting modalities with certain types of training (As was prescribed in\u00a0Engineering the Alpha<\/i><\/a>.) Each approach is designed to take advantage of the growing evidence of the benefits of fasting, an area that is admittedly still young in terms of research.<\/p>\n

Although intermittent fasting became synonymous with being an anti-breakfast diet, it\u2019s an inaccurate generalization of a style of eating that attempts to remove rules (you must eat breakfast within 30 minutes of waking!) and replace it with a simplified approach that offers flexibility. For example, you can still wake up, eat breakfast at 9 and then stop your meals at 5. This would be considered intermittent fasting. Or you could have breakfast 5 days a week and fast one day per week. This is also intermittent fasting. [Eds. note: I practice a style of intermittent fasting\u2014and wrote a best-selling book<\/a> that shares an IF style diet\u2014but I do not think it\u2019s the only diet approach or the best for everyone. Every eating style should be dependent on an individual\u2019s goals.<\/em>]<\/p>\n

Whether you practice intermittent fasting or not, it’s important to know that\u00a0you don\u2019t have to eat a meal at any particular time of the day. <\/b>Just as it\u2019s ridiculous to insinuate that having a meal after 6 pm will make you fat, it\u2019s just as careless to make a blanket statement saying you must<\/i> eating upon waking and enjoy a big breakfast.<\/p>\n

Some people don\u2019t do well when they are forced to eat first thing in the morning. Others prefer this style and find that it helps them prevent overeating. Both models work, with the main message being your eating schedule should fit into a sustainable lifestyle pattern. Saying \u201cbreakfast is the most important meal of the day\u201d is a misnomer; every meal is the most important, and your food choices are much more important than the times you eat.<\/p>\n

But I heard Skipping Breakfast is Bad For Your Heart…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fasters and non-fasters should be able to get along just fine\u2014if not for some dangerously misleading research that was recently published. Scientists from the Harvard School of Public Health (or maybe more accurately the PR department at the school) made the all-too-broad claim that skipping breakfast was tied to an increase in heart attacks<\/a> and coronary heart disease.<\/p>\n

Wait.<\/p>\n

One.<\/p>\n

Second.<\/p>\n

Skipping breakfast does what?<\/em><\/p>\n

After a close look at the study design and the results, that conclusion couldn’t be more inaccurate or misleading.\u00a0If you only look at the study abstract, it appears that skipping breakfast leads to a 27% increase in heart issues. That’s what you’ll hear in the news and see published at all the main outlets. What a shame.<\/p>\n

After a close analysis, here\u2019s what the research really found:<\/p>\n