Today JAMA published a study that evaluated the health data of 26,902 men over a course of 16 years and found that skipping breakfast was associated with a 27% higher risk of heart attack compared to eating breakfast. “This is not an exceptionally high risk,” says Leah Cahill, PhD, research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, “but because heart attack is a common cause of death and disease, if everyone ate breakfast regularly it could have a very positive public health impact.” What’s more: When Dr. Cahill and her colleagues took other lifestyle factors—healthy and unhealthy—into account, the association between skipping breakfast and heart attack held true. Previously, skipping breakfast has been shown to have adverse effects on blood pressure, blood cholesterol, and insulin. Specifically, insulin resistance, according to research presented at The Endocrine Society’s 95th Annual Meeting in June. And we’re not talking over a matter of time; it can happen if you skip breakfast once. Meaning that after passing on breakfast your body requires more insulin to bring your blood sugar into normal range. “It is possible that breakfast skipping over time may lead to prolonged insulin resistance and development of type 2 diabetes,” says the study’s lead author Elizabeth Thomas, MD, an endocrinology fellow at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora. “After an overnight fast, there is a relative insulin-resistance because your body does not have carbohydrate to burn, so it switches to fat sources for energy over the night,” explains study author Richard D. Mattes, MPH, Ph.D., R.D., distinguished professor of nutrition science at Purdue University. “So in the morning, you’re relatively insulin resistant. You have that first meal and that sort of sensitizes your body so you respond better at the second meal.” This is known as the second meal effect. Luckily, you can create this second meal effect starting with eating nuts at breakfast. Research has found that peanut butter, peanuts, and almonds profoundly impact your blood sugar, keeping it stable past lunch and achieving the second meal effect, according to a study in the British Journal of Nutrition. Because the nuts are high in fat, they will empty from the stomach slower, Dr. Mettes, the study’s author, says. By impeding carbohydrate from emptying, it slows its absorption, and as a result, you don’t see as big a swing in blood sugar. “It’s the second meal effect that’s really the interesting phenomenon because what that says is that you have a moderation of blood sugar over a very prolonged period of time now,” he says. “It expands not just for the hour or two hours after breakfast but all the way to lunch and beyond lunch now.” For that reason, nuts should be regular guests at the morning party in your tummy. “Regardless of whether they are peanuts or tree nuts like almonds, pistachios and cashews, nuts in general are nutritional powerhouse morsels packed with heart-healthy fats, proteins, vitamins, and minerals and phytonutrients,” says Kantha Shelke, PhD, food scientist at CorvusBlue LLC and a spokesperson for the Institute of Food Technologists. While peanuts and almonds were specifically shown to have this effect, all nuts may function in the same way. “The differences between nuts may be a matter of degrees, and then a function of some of the components and how they are packed together in the nuts,” Dr. Shelke says. Peanut butter toast, anyone? More from Prevention: What’s Healthier: Peanut Butter Or Almond Butter? Power Breakfasts For Energy 8 Healthy Breakfast Ideas
