How breakfast saves our lives by reducing the risk of obesity and diabetes: the discovery

Breakfast is a fundamental meal for our health because it reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes and obesity by making our body work better: here's how.

Breakfast is an excellent ‘vice' that we should acquire because if you don’t have breakfast the risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease increase: but how exactly eating early in the morning can affect the functioning of our organism? The question was answered by the researchers from the University of Tel Aviv who published the results of their study in the Diabetes Care journal.

The research. To reach these conclusions, the researchers analyzed the blood of a group of 18 healthy people and 18 obese people with diabetes who were asked to have breakfast and lunch, and to have lunch only. The goal was to measure the expression of the Clock gene (the one that regulates the circadian rhythm) after lunch:

plasma glucose
insulin
GLP-1 (Glucagon-like peptide 1)
the dipeptidyl-peptidase IV

These elements are implicated in the onset of type 2 diabetes.

The results. Collected data showed that the people who had breakfast showed an expression of the Clock gene that allowed to keep the blood sugar under control: both for healthy people and for those with diabetes, having breakfast allowed a better expression of genes related to loss weight and associated with better glucose and insulin levels after lunch. Otherwise, for the people who had only had lunch, the Clock gene was irregular and linked to blood sugar peaks and poor insulin responses throughout the day.

The conclusions. These results suggest that skipping breakfast leads to weight gain regardless of the meals made during the day. The advice is therefore to always eat something before 9.30 in the morning, of course without exaggerating not to lose the benefits of this meal.