Skipping Breakfast May Be Linked To Poor Heart Health, Study Says (theguardian.com)

A new study says that skipping breakfast could be linked to poorer cardiovascular health. The findings reveal that, compared with those who wolfed down an energy-dense breakfast, those who missed the meal had a greater extent of the early stages of atherosclerosis -- a buildup of fatty material inside the arteries. The Guardian reports: The research is part of a larger study that will follow the participants over a decade or more to see how disease in the arteries progresses. Published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the research looked at the health and diets of 4,052 middle-aged bank workers, both men and women, with no previous history of cardiovascular disease. At the start of the study, which is partly funded by the Spanish bank Santander, participants completed a detailed questionnaire into what they had eaten and when over the previous 15 days. Body mass index, cholesterol levels and other measures were collected, together with data including the participants' smoking status, educational attainment and level of physical activity. Imaging techniques were used to track the extent of the early, sub-clinical stages of atherosclerosis in six arteries, including those around the heart, thighs and neck. The results reveal that, compared to those tucking into more than 20% of their daily calories at breakfast, those who consumed next to nothing for breakfast had a greater extent of atherosclerosis.

Comments

Question

[93 Escort Wagon]

What if my preferred breakfast is glazed donuts?

Re:Question

[taiwanjohn]

Well, donuts would certainly qualify as "energy-dense" as described in the summary, but this is all a very recent aberration in our evolutionary development. Obviously, donuts don't grow on trees. In fact, such pure sources of carbohydrate are extremely rare in nature, which is why we are not well adapted to them. (Carbs have no nutritional value; you could eliminate them completely from your diet, and get along just fine.) The fruits that do grow on trees are rich in carbs, but they are only available in season. Our bodies are optimized for a low-carb diet.

In fact, in pre-historic times, we probably spent most of the time fasting, and "breakfast" was simply whatever meal you were lucky enough to get a few times a week.

Re:Question

[ls671]

Anyway, I almost pass out sometimes around 5 PM when I forget to eat breakfast. Since I will be 82 in a few weeks, it is understandable although. I am sorry, I guess that what I am trying to say is that maybe I should have eaten you for breakfast when that happens. Better than nothing I guess...

I am truly sorry again dear glazed donut,

Re:Question

[Opportunist]

You know what else isn't available in nature? Cooking. Oh, and in the northern regions, forget about citrus fruits, so enjoy your scurvy from time to time.

Just because something is "unnatural" doesn't mean it's bad. It does instinctively make sense to say "hey, our ancestors didn't have X, they evolved without X, so we don't need X to survive". The fallacy here is that our ancestors only needed to survive until they could procreate to keep the species going. So dying with 30-35 is perfectly fine. You'd procreate before (at about 14-16 years of age, maybe have 2-3 more kids and die when they in turn reach the ripe age of 14-16), so the species is fine.

You probably ain't, but who gives a shit? It's natural!

So please can the "it's unnatural" argument. It's bollocks.

Re:Question

[religionofpeas]

Oh, and in the northern regions, forget about citrus fruits, so enjoy your scurvy from time to time.

There's plenty of vitamin C in other things, including raw meat.

So dying with 30-35 is perfectly fine

Not at all. It's very beneficial for a tribe to have elders with experience.

Re:Question

[mapkinase]

Yeah... I would consider a paleodiet when coding for money will be called a paleojob.

Re:Question

[Anne Thwacks]

That must be why battery chickens, which eat little else, just die.

Are they eating Lithium-Ion batteries, or lead-acid? or do they, in reality, have a mixed diet?

Enquiring minds need to know!

Re:Question

[Kohath]

What if it is? There's nothing particularly bad about eating a glazed donut a few times a week. Diet related health problems are related to the total of all foods eaten over long periods of time (in combination with other lifestyle factors), not specific food items.

Re:Question

[thegarbz]

Neither of what you stated invalidates the GP's core argument, that just because something isn't "natural" doesn't mean it's not good for you.

You know what else we consumed in pre-historic times? Older meat. We weren't above scavenging, at least not until someone correlated it with death and disease.

Cooking solves a world of problems. The pre-historic argument which was being replied to was an incredible load of shit. Yeah they didn't get cancer. We wouldn't either if we lived such short lives. Kids crank out offspring as soon as they biologically could, and the 30 year olds WERE the tribal elders back then.

Re:Question

[hduff]

What if my preferred breakfast is glazed donuts?

The you are doing it right.

Re:Question

[coastwalker]

I used to mistakenly think that you needed citrus fruit for vitamin C. This is a very bad and wrong idea. The point about citrus fruit is that it contains a ton of teeth rotting citric acid so you can store it for sea voyages without anything growing in it - particularly if you mix it 50:50 with Rum to prevent the vast quantities of sugar in citrus juice from fermenting and exploding out of its container. Citrus fruit is a shit source of vitamin C unless you are on a medieval sailing boat, contains no dietary fiber, too many sugar calories and teeth rotting acid.

What you should be eating is Broccoli 75% daily requirement in 50g (2oz), Bell pepper 65% daily requirement in 50g (2oz), Cabbage 60% daily requirements in 100g (4oz), Kale 200% in 50g (2oz) and many there are other vegetables that contain vitamin C.

Meat contains proteins, fat, salt and no vitamins. As an aside your microbiome will die if you do not eat the dietary fiber from vegetables. This is very bad for your long term health.

Somebody should nuke the marketing executives in the food industry from space and teach youngsters at school which foods contain life sustaining Fats, Carbohydrates, Sugars, Fiber, Protein and Vitamins as it sure as fuck is not what the T.V. or clean eating morons are advertising as food.

Re:Question

[Opportunist]

When you died at the old age of 35 a million years ago, chances are that you have seen the birth of your grandchild maybe managed to be there to see it through those critical first 3-5 years of its life, how much more "elder" do you want to get? Ok, granted, maybe you can make it to 40 and see your great-grandchild be born, but I guess that's already asking a bit much, ain't it?

Re:Question

[Opportunist]

Screw this, all you need it a healthy intake of the four big food groups: Fat, sugar, salt and caffeine.

Re:Question

[stealth_finger]

So dying with 30-35 is perfectly fine

Not at all. It's very beneficial for a tribe to have elders with experience.

Elder is a relative term.

Re:Question

[wardrich86]

Are you me?

Re:Question

[tomhath]

You know what else isn't available in nature? Cooking

There's plenty of evidence that human evolution took off around the time they learned to use fire. Cooking meat and vegetables makes them easier to digest, providing the extra energy needed by larger brains.

Re:Question

[TechyImmigrant]

>Meat contains proteins, fat, salt and no vitamins.

Are you lying or are you genuinely that misinformed?

Re:Question

[houghi]

I have read somewhere that the average age was so low because child death was so high. Average was actually around 50 when you deduct the kids dying after the first year.

So there where elders and it was an average, so older ones where there as well.

Not sure where I got the info from or what period it spoke of.

Re:Question

[PopeRatzo]

What if my preferred breakfast is glazed donuts?

You need some protein with that. I recommend a boilermaker with a pickled egg on the side.

Re:Question

[grub]

82? Your UID should be in the single digits!

Re:Question

[Opportunist]

I had a similar discussion with a friend of mine who studies prehistory and early human development.

It's pretty hard to determine the "real" average age of ancient people just by digging through their graves (if they have anything like this at all). Let's imagine you find a prehistoric graveyard. What will you find? Well, a bunch of people who were buried there, of course. What will you not find? Anyone whose body could not be retrieved by the tribe. In other words, you will not find the kids that the lion caught or that were abducted by other tribes, you will not find the hunters who had a broken bone and couldn't quite run so fast anymore when defending the catch against the lions turned bad with more lions showing up and you had to hightail it. Telling the average age from graves is very tempting, but very misleading.

What the graves tell us, though, is that those people that did get old usually did so in bad health. Often malnourished, bones that show off how their life was a daily struggle, many with injuries that made them probably a liability for their tribe. Funny enough, this was probably also the reason just WHY they got so old, if you break your leg at age 20 and can't hunt anymore, but you survive it and now you "work at home", so to speak, your chance to die in a hunting accident or falling off a tree while trying to gather fruits is way lower.

Old people (over the age of 50) were still rare. Many died much earlier from accidents, from animals that refused to become food or from animals that wanted to turn the human into food. If anything, this is a testament of our ability to work in medium sized groups. One "old" person is enough to teach a tribe of young hunters, and one old granny can keep an eye on a dozen kids or two.

Re:Question

[Opportunist]

Where does that "last century" come from? I'm pretty sure it's clear I'm talking about ancient times, quite a bit before even the 30,000 years you talk about.

I am talking about a time before humans learned to cook their food. Cooking wasn't invented in the last century FFS.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

So dying with 30-35 is perfectly fine. You'd procreate before (at about 14-16 years of age, maybe have 2-3 more kids and die when they in turn reach the ripe age of 14-16), so the species is fine

The shorter lifespans of early humans had more to do with high infant mortality, and inability to fend for oneself after physical injury than it did malnutrition. Think about it. If you live to be 70, and have a couple of children, 50% of whom make it to 15 years old, that brings the average age down considerably.

From the cited paper above:

life expectancy at age 15 is 48 years for Aborigines, 52 and 51 for settled Ache and !Kung, yet 31 and 36 for peasant and transitional Agta. Survival to age 45 varies between 19 and 54 percent, and those aged 45 live an average of 12–24 additional years

and

nfant mortality is over 30 times greater among hunter-gatherers, and early child mortality is over 100 times greater than encountered in the United States. We see that on average 57 percent, 64 percent, and 67 percent of children born survive to age 15 years among hunter-gatherers, forager-horticulturalists, and acculturated hunter-gatherers./quote?

Re:Question

[JohnFen]

Just because something is "unnatural" doesn't mean it's bad.

Also, the idea that there are things that are "natural" and "unnatural" is a weird, artificial notion largely without meaning.

Re:Question

[93 Escort Wagon]

Cooking wasn't invented in the last century FFS.

You're right. Cooking was invented in 2002 by Rachael Ray.

Re:Question

[93 Escort Wagon]

Thanks - I'm on it!

Re:Question

[JohnFen]

(Carbs have no nutritional value; you could eliminate them completely from your diet, and get along just fine.)

This is simply and plainly not true. Carbs are an important energy source for your body. Yes, if you cut them out completely your body will get energy from proteins and such, but there will be health impacts over the long haul, primarily with your central nervous system.

What is true is that the typical American eats far, far more carbs than is required, and reducing them will often bring health benefits.

Re:Question

[taiwanjohn]

Carbs are an important energy source for your body. Yes, if you cut them out completely your body will get energy from proteins and such

No, fats are an important energy source for your body. Carbs are just empty calories.

Re:Question

[ChrisMaple]

Most of human evolution happened near the equator. Seasons aren't very strong there, and fruit is available year-round.

Re:Question

[ChrisMaple]

The phrase "empty calories" is generally understood to mean "food without vitamins or minerals". Pure carbohydrates, pure fats, pure protein are all empty calories.

Re:Question

[ChrisMaple]

The sugar spike of a glazed or filled doughnut on an empty stomach is in itself harmful. Damage accumulates slowly.

Re:Question

[JohnFen]

I think you should have a chat with an actual nutritionist. "Empty calories" means no vitamins. Those calories are still used to fuel your body, though.

Correlation ...

[Anonymous Coward]

People who take the time to breakfast probably also hit the sack earlier and get more sleep.

Re:Correlation ...

[Opportunist]

People who have the time to breakfast also probably suffer from less stress and generally have more time to prepare healthy meals instead of stuffing their face with whatever is available to rip open and stir into hot water.

Re:Correlation ...

[thesupraman]

Exactly.

Journalists love to ignore the simple fact that correlation is not causation.

Because it makes for great headlines, but also has caused many many problems.

Re:Correlation ...

[Bongo]

Anyone interested can check the blog of Dr Malcom Kendrick. He's been rabbitting on for about 30 episodes now on all the factors involved, and how the conventional view -- a view which is starting to be rejected by the mainstream, but the man in the street is yet to hear about it -- the conventional view became dogma but doesn't make sense. The lipid hypothesis is dead. The notion that fat clogs up the arteries like a drain clogged with lard, is dead. His very latest blog discusses the mechanical fluid forces inside the arteries, and in combination with what, might be a cause (the damage is usually seen only where these forces are greatest in the vessels, so always the same places, end so on). One thing reading his blogs is that he makes it abundantly clear that it is not a simple problem. But medicine kinda fell into a dogma about it. Anyway, yeah, the people not having breakfast, why is that? Maybe they are not going to be early, getting up early, and having time to eat breakfast. Maybe they are stressing themselves and not getting sleep. And a lot of repair happens during sleep. And Kendrick also talks about how the internal scabs in the arteries would be broken down gradually in a healthy person, but in some people this doesn't happen, so they eventually get too big and break off and cause a stroke, It is fascinating stuff. A quite entertaining blog is nothing else.

Re:Correlation ...

[Bongo]

Sorry about the fifteen million typos in that post. :-(

Re:Correlation ...

[Bongo]

The current president of the world heart federation came out and agreed with nina teicholz's book which exposed the hypothesis was based on fraud. The president of the world heart federation himself said it was based on flawed biased science. It's on youtube even.

Re:Correlation ...

[leathered]

There was an FDA study in the 70s or 80s that showed that pipe smokers lived on average three years more than non-smokers. If true then it's certainly down to stress or lack of it, I mean have you ever seen an angry pipe smoker?

Re:Correlation ...

[thegarbz]

People who have the time

Time is something in control of the people. There is almost no one on the planet who can't find 15min in his day to eat a decent breakfast, if they know of basic time management.

Want to eat breakfast in your tight morning schedule? Wake up 15min earlier. Want to free up your evening schedule? Spend 15min less time on Slashdot / rotting in front of the TV.

Re:Correlation ...

[Bongo]

The medical world seems quite conservatively minded. They get taught a lot of information in school and they don't have time to question it. And they have to take responsibility for people's lives, and make mistakes. So it is humanly difficult. And when something as public and big as public health advice which has been given out for decades, turns out to be questionable, a lot of people are going to have a problem with that on principle. Also, there's the argument that food companies became vested interests in this whole thing too. So here's the deal: I've personally been following this LCHF thing for going on ten years, and try as I might to bear in mind my own bias, I continue to be surprised at how much better I'm doing on it. The other month I went to a conference and there were about 100 doctors in the room who were interested in using LCHF with their patients (as they'd tried it themselves) but were in a quandry because there is so much resistance from various parts, that they fear they'll be disqualified from practice, yet having tried it themselves, they find it works for them, so there is something obviously not adding up. So yes you can find many people attacking LCHF, and many people making claims on it. Human health is not a solved problem, and it is hard to study, for many reasons. If one population smokes like a chimney but doesn't get much lung cancer does that mean the smoking-cancer link is bogus? If a study claims they had one group on low carb, was it actually low enough carb? If you get people to eat one food, you automatically reduce their eating of other foods, like for vegetarians, they cut out a lot of stuff, so are they better because of the veggies or because they didn't eat as much sugar anyway, or because they are more health conscious in other ways? It is complex. My own opinion is that once people go LCHF, the health effect is too large to ignore. There is something in it. YMMV.

Re:Correlation ...

[Opportunist]

May I be present when you discuss this with a minimum wage earning single mom working double shifts?

Re:Correlation ...

[stealth_finger]

May I also discuss birth control and responsibility?

I'll drop in at the end when you discuss time travel.

Re:Correlation ...

[bradley13]

"People who have the time to breakfast also probably suffer from less stress and generally have more time to prepare healthy meals"

No, it's just a choice, like any other. I choose to get up about 45 minutes earlier, so I can do a bit of exercise, drink a cup of coffee, and eat a cooked breakfast. This costs me a bit of sleep, but (for me) the health benefits are worth it.

There are days I can't pry myself out of bed, and that's fine. As Scott Adams says in his book: you just need a system, and your doing fine, if you system mostly works.

Re:Correlation ...

[Solandri]

The lipid hypothesis is dead. The notion that fat clogs up the arteries like a drain clogged with lard, is dead.

When I was in grade school in the 1970s, our parents came to our class one by one over about a month so we could get a sense of what types of careers there were. My friend's father was a bioresearcher. He brought in samples of rabbit aortas. They'd been experimenting by feeding rabbits diets with different amounts of fat in their food. (Yes, herbivores can eat and process meat.) After a few years (however long rabbits live), they dissected the rabbits, and sliced and unrolled the aorta to measure how much arterial plaque had built up on the walls.

The display board he brought in had 4 or 5 aorta sections, arranged from no-fat diet to increasing fat diet. There was a visually obvious correlation between amount of fat in the diet and amount of plaque built up on the artery walls.

I'm sure the mechanism is much more complicated than simply "consumed fat turns into plaque on artery walls." There's probably a threshold below which consumed fat doesn't clog your arteries. And I'm sure other types of food could be converted by your body into lipids which turn into plaques. But there most assuredly is a positive causal correlation between fat consumption and arteriosclerosis.

Re:Correlation ...

[Opportunist]

Sure, I'll bring the popcorn. I always love the part where you get torn a new one as a substitute for the cheating asshole that left her alone with the brat.

Re:Correlation ...

[jeffporcaro]

Although rabbits can eat and digest meat, they are herbivores by nature. Forcing them to eat meat probably leads to conclusions that cannot easily be generalized to humans.

Re:Correlation ...

[Sperbels]

Yes

Re:Correlation ...

[wyHunter]

Actually it's more a lifestyle choice. My wife and I eat breakfast together daily, a cooked breakfast that I make. We have lives as busy as anyone else's but this is a priority for us. Obviously there are extreme cases - a soldier on patrol can't do this. But since a cooked breakfast takes about 10 minutes to cook and about 15 minutes to eat, we're talking half an hour here.

Re:Correlation ...

[ChrisMaple]

A minimum wage earning single mom working double shifts represents what portion of the population?

Even with quick, cheap breakfasts there is a range of choices. Oatmeal is better than pop tarts. Cheerios or Wheaties in milk are better than chocolate frosted sugar bombs. Orange juice or coffee is better than Old Overholt or Schlitz.

Re:Correlation ...

[ChrisMaple]

Interesting point. Pipe smokers either tend to be a certain type of personality or pipe-smoking makes them that sort of person. Pipe smoking requires more ritual and skill than cigars, cigarettes, snuff, or chaw. By requiring more attention to getting the fire going and maintained, pipe smokers tend to be more contemplative people, more likely to think through actions before acting. (When smoking was allowed in public places, security guards didn't have to worry much about pipe smokers stealing things [or so I've heard].} Generally, pipe smokers don't inhale, pipe smoke is cooler than cigarette and cigar smoke, and a lot of the poisons get deposited inside the stem.

Re:Correlation ...

[Quirkz]

I eat breakfast at work, as do several of my co-workers. For me that's got less to do with having/making time, as I just don't like mornings. I get up as late as possible, do as little as possible to get to work, and I'm not usually really hungry until I get there anyway.

Intermittent fasting

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... this is interesting.

>Participants who skipped breakfast had the greatest waist circumference, body mass index, blood pressure, blood lipids and fasting glucose levels.

I skip breakfast (i'm on 12/12 intermittent fasting schedule) and I'm fit, healthy BMI, no high blood pressure. Dunno about glucose, but I'm also on low carb diet, so it should never really skyrocket.

>Participants who skipped breakfast were more likely to have an overall unhealthy lifestyle, including poor overall diet, frequent alcohol consumption and smoking. They were also more likely to be hypertensive and overweight or obese.

I think this pretty much excludes all of us who intentionally fast. i believe more research is required, it could be that fasting + high carb diet ("normal" western diet) is really bad (which would make sense due to sugar spikes), not intermittent fasting itself!

Re: Intermittent fasting

[Anonymous Coward]

I did intermittent fasting and I went hyperglycemic. According to my doctor, the fasting caused my liver to convert a lot of fat into sugar, I lost 25kg in 3 years, which caused me to become diabetic. Now I need to take meds that will cause my liver to produce more insuline, meaning that it will try to get me fat again, I have to fight hard to loose weight, in fact I've given up on loosing weight by eating less and instead I am working on increasing muscle mass instead.

I will say this: It seems you should be looking for a new doctor.

1- Hyperglycemia is not something that would have been caused by intermittent fasting unless you were a type 1 diabetic to begin with.
2- Your doctor said that fasting caused your body to convert fat into sugar, which is not what happens, the large amount of calories during a fast come from fatty acids which are converted into ketones. Ketones have caloric energy which is on the order of 28 times that of carbohydrates. Granted stored triglycerides within the body have a glycerol backbone which can be metabolized into a limited amount of glucose, but that is not what your body is "running off of" if that happens, much more calories will be coming from fatty acid metabolism. A simple way for your doctor to have determined this would have been with a fasting test of your ketones.
3- You said you have to take meds to make your liver produce insulin? Did your doctor tell you that? Insulin is produced in the pancreas by beta cells. The liver converts glucose into a storage form called Glucagon, and can convert it back into glucose upon demand among many other things. Insulin comes from the pancreas though, not from the liver. Your liver is not going to "Try to make you fat" it is simply processing what you give it to process into fuel and waste products.

4- Lots of people feel they have to fight hard to lose weight, While this may take a lot of effort, the main thing is keeping your insulin level as low as possible so that the exercise you are able to do is fueled by stored body fat in a slight (usually about 10%) caloric deficit. Trying to go faster than losing a pound or two per week will throw you into a mode that will cause blood sugar fluctuations in the short term but in the long term if you don't overdo it you will lose weight from body fat. (provided you don't have type 1 diabetes and need to inject insulin which is a problem whose cause is unrelated to what you have eaten in general, we don't really know if there are food or toxins or infections that cause type 1 diabetes in susceptible people , finding a combination of things like that is statistically difficult and probably is a dead end in terms of research.)

I would say you should find another doctor because your doctor does not seem to understand how the body works.

Re:Intermittent fasting

[sacremon]

That's nice. You are an n =1. From the article, 2.9% of 4052 people in the study skipped breakfast, which works out to either 117 or 118 people. Some of them might be just like you, but probably not too many.

There might be other factors involved, like culture or the job. Unless the authors control for it, maybe there is something with being a Spanish bank employee that leads to this kind of poor health if you don't eat breakfast?

Re:Intermittent fasting

[alvinrod]

The general problem though is that if the group that does skip breakfast overwhelmingly falls into other categories that are also suspected to contribute to poor heart health. The study even spells out as much:

Participants who skipped breakfast were more likely to have an overall unhealthy lifestyle, including poor overall diet, frequent alcohol consumption and smoking. They were also more likely to be hypertensive and overweight or obese. In the case of obesity, the study authors said reverse causation cannot be ruled out, and the observed results may be explained by obese patients skipping breakfast to lose weight.

In that case it doesn't matter that he's the exception in that group, which already seems to be an exception to most of the study population. It's far more likely that the results are not due to skipping breakfast given everything else we know.

Re:Intermittent fasting

[painandgreed]

I skip breakfast (i'm on 12/12 intermittent fasting schedule) and I'm fit, healthy BMI, no high blood pressure. Dunno about glucose, but I'm also on low carb diet, so it should never really skyrocket.

No doubt due to the advantages of the famed healthy Russian diet, you "anonymous" coward.

stupid studies

[mocm]

Who remembers what they have eaten the last 15 days? How many of the answers were incorrect, either because the people forgot or lied for
whatever reason. These medical studies are just usefull enough to find trends that have to be backed up by real research into cause and effect.
To even publish such early results is irresponsible and might even bias other research by leading them into a wrong direction.

Re:stupid studies

[mentil]

I might not be able to remember everything I ate yesterday, but I could remember if I skipped breakfast.

Re:stupid studies

[speedplane]

And here's a study just last year saying breakfast doesn't matter. This is typical. Decades of nutritional studies have often turned out useless and in many cases harmful. Hard to trust anything now. Gotta just trust your gut.

That's a pun, but it's often true. Pay close attention to how your body reacts to what you put into it. It's the best feedback mechanism we have.

Re:stupid studies

[Cederic]

Gotta just trust your gut.

Having seen the remains of what my gut does to breakfast I'm not sure I want to trust it.

Re:stupid studies

[drinkypoo]

Hard to trust anything now. Gotta just trust your gut.
That's a pun, but it's often true.

It's not just a pun, your guts actually make decisions. And what's more, they seem to be pretty good at it.

Re:stupid studies

[thegarbz]

Who remembers what they have eaten the last 15 days?

The answer to that would depend highly on if I was part of a study that was to record my habits.

The only studies that come out of the blue and surprise people without any kind of forewarning are psychological studies.

I did one of these while I was at uni. The "detailed questionnaire" I completed, well I do so on the run over a period of one month. I didn't need to remember anything more than the last night, and if I couldn't remember there was an option for that too.

Re:stupid studies

[Lastfree]

To be honest I remember all my breakfasts from the last 15 days. But it's only because I don't change its ingredients:)

Re:stupid studies

[thegarbz]

Decades of nutritional studies have often turned out useless and in many cases harmful.

They have done nothing of the sort and most have been quite consistent in their conclusions. What has turned out useless and harmful is distilling the entire study down to a soundbite or headline such as "fat bad" or "carbs bad" instead of the actual conclusion that these many decades of studies have actually drawn: "Fat is bad in the complete absence of a balanced diet given conditional modifiers which are too long to explain in a headline". It just doesn't sound as catchy, and "eat a balanced meal" is too complicated of a message for most people to absorb.

Despite the fact that has been a very consistent conclusion from decades of nutritional studies.

Re:stupid studies

[HighOrbit]

According to the latest study, you can't eat anything.

Granted, "The Center for Consumer Freedom" is a blatant lobby group for the food industry, but their radio ad campaigns that they run in the DC area are hilarious. For real laughs, listen to their archives of radio ads.

Re:stupid studies

[ChrisMaple]

Panasonic and GM are well served by people who never get sick.People who die young tend not to develop new products, nor buy them.

Many products that are THE top killers of humans are perfectly legal, because they create massive revenue and perpetuate death.

The message that you're trying to hide is that you think you should be the dictator who tells everyone what they may or may not do.

Re:stupid studies

[speedplane]

Decades of nutritional studies have often turned out useless and in many cases harmful.

They have done nothing of the sort and most have been quite consistent in their conclusions.

Where to begin? For decades: the food pyramid was dominated by carbs; saturated fats were deemed harmful and replaced with sugar; animal fats were replaced with trans fats, so much more.

Re:stupid studies

[thegarbz]

You can begin by reading my comment. Scientists have NEVER suggested replacing saturated fats with sugar. Likewise the food pyramid is not dominated by carbs, even if it were the largest base category (which it never was outside of the USA). The last thing you mentioned also wasn't supported by science.

Now repeat after me: "Marketing materials from food companies and governments is not science." "Catchy one liners are not science." "I will read and understand a comment on Slashdot before replying".

Have a good weekend.

Re:stupid studies

[speedplane]

Now repeat after me: "Marketing materials from food companies and governments is not science." "Catchy one liners are not science."

Not quite.... The FDA has the power to regulate misleading or false marketing materials by food companies, but often gives its seal of approval to totally dubious claims. The sugar industry and food lobby have funded tons of "science" that is more often than not conveniently aligned with their business interests. I agree, marketing is not good science, but like it or not, when the FDA allows a dubious marketing claim and academic researchers accept industry money to provide evidence for these claims, it is often accepted as science.

Re:stupid studies

[speedplane]

You can begin by reading my comment. Scientists have NEVER suggested replacing saturated fats with sugar.

Yes they did. Back in the 60s, fat was evil. They didn't explicitly say to replace it with sugar, but the industry filled the void for them.

impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot skip breakfast.

If you don't have meal after you woke up and eat around midday, that would be your breaking of the fast.

No such problems in German, French, Italian or Portuguese speaking countries/people.

Same problem in Spanish speaking countries (desayuno does really mean breaking the fast too in Spanish)

correlation ... causation ... blah blah blah

[religionofpeas]

Always the same story. Correlation does not equal causation, especially not in extremely complex environments such as diets.

Better research would be to tell people to start skipping breakfast, or -- if they already skip it -- to start eating one, and see what happens to these people.

Re:correlation ... causation ... blah blah blah

[speedplane]

Always the same story. Correlation does not equal causation, ...

True, but in nutritional studies, correlation/causation is just one of the many problems. They are often based on inaccurate surveys, are in uncontrolled environments, and use unrepresentative populations.

There's a good Malcom Gladwell podcast all about nutritional study experimentation. So many of these studies are horrible. There are exceptions though. Facilities where everything can be controlled can often make for decent nutritional studies (e.g., prisons, mental health facilities). These are few and far between for the obvious reasons.

Re:correlation ... causation ... blah blah blah

[religionofpeas]

Ya, but that's considered unethical because of the damage your recommendation may cause

Use volunteers, and have them sign a paper that states they are aware of the risks.

Re:correlation ... causation ... blah blah blah

[drinkypoo]

Facilities where everything can be controlled can often make for decent nutritional studies (e.g., prisons, mental health facilities). These are few and far between for the obvious reasons.

Alas, they are far from few, or far between. (I know what you meant, but it's not the only way to read what you wrote, nor even the most logical way if you take it out of context... which is fun.)

Breakfast

[geekymachoman]

I understand not all people are the same, and I know people that don't eat breakfast... however, for me.. I'm just not right if I don't eat. I feel weak, dizzy, and I cannot wake up properly ( i do not drink coffee or other stimulants ), sometimes I get a headache that doesn't go away until the next day.

Simple breakfast such as cheese, slice of bread or (not sweet) croissant and tomatoes work nicely. Doesn't have to be a full english fry up. Who has time for that ?

Re:Breakfast

[speedplane]

The lightness and subtle discomfort of being on an empty stomach gets me reved up. My mornings skipping bfast are usually productive, then not so good after lunch. To each their own.

Re:Breakfast

[Cro Magnon]

Same here! I don't feel right until I eat something (might be a quick bite of cheese or bread) and some juice (usually orange).

many possible explonations

[Dorianny]

People generally skip breakfast because they can't make time for it. If you would rather skip breakfast then wake up a half hour earlier then it is likely that you aren't getting a full nights rest and chronic lack a sleep has long been long been associated with poor health

I could never skip breakfast

[Opportunist]

Without my morning Red Bull and the two aspirin I'm simply not functional.

Re:I could never skip breakfast

[avandesande]

Too sweet. Vodka and bacon works for me.

Re:I could never skip breakfast

[Opportunist]

You have odd eating habits. That's more suited for a dinner than a breakfast.

Re:I can smell.....

[amalcolm]

Did you stop taking your meds?

Yeah, it's nation-wide pandemia...

[mapkinase]

Who in the right or wrong mind skips breakfast? God made you the best time of the day: morning, when you are fresh and ready to do great things. God made you a steaming hot cup a joe and God gave you the concept of breakfast, a hearty meal full of proteins and carbohydrates to exploit the morning freshness 100% until life kills you in the evening.

What kind of cockamamie problems bother nowaday "researchers"?

Atherosclerosis is an inflammatory process

[Zorpheus]

It can be stopped by a relaxed walk of 20-30 minutes per day. A lack of physical activity is the main cause of heart attacks. I think this is an accepted fact today.
Nutrition does not seem to be too important, these studies rather seem to find symptoms of an unhealthy lifestyle. Kinda funny is: I lived in Germany for a long time, where people eat lots of salt and not so much fat. Regarding nutrition they are mostly worried about the fat they eat, thinking that it will block their arteries and lead to high blood pressure and heart attacks. Now I live in Scotland for a while. They have a diet rich in fat and meat and eat very low amounts of salt. Yet they are most worried about eating salt, thinking that it will increase their blood pressure and lead to heart problems.
I think they are both wrong. E.g. I would bet the Germans have a higher blood pressure due to their general attitude to work, but they also eat more salt than others. A study looking for the relation between salt consumption and blood pressure would see a link if it includes the Germans and other Europeans, while it might just be a random correlation. I don't know the study that stated the link of salt consumption to high blood pressure, but knowing the different cultures I would bet it is not a real link.

Re: Atherosclerosis is an inflammatory process

[Zorpheus]

Someone who listens to their body will walk enough to avoid atherosclerosis, will sleep enough and will eat what is healthy. Someone with a difficult life won't have time to listen to their body, won't sleep enough, won't have time for breakfast or walking and so on. I would say that is how everything is related, and why all this links seems to be linked in studies.

Who sponsored the study?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

With absolutely no information I boldly predict, if you dig through all the funding sources, you would find a breakfast food company funding this study.

Reading slashdot may be linked to poor health...

[Drethon]

Researchers have looked at readers of slashdot and them to be more unhealthy as compared to the greater population. Their typical diet being pizza in their parents basement was dismissed as unrelated to the study.

Re:Correlation is not causation

[Smidge204]

Correlation does not imply causation, except when it does;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

=Smidge=

High Carb = Western

[sacremon]

BTW, a recent article in The Lancet looked at 135,335 individuals from 18 countries over a median time of 7.4 years and they found that a diet high in carbs (as a percentage of total calories) was far more typical in Asia than in the West.

Re:High Carb = Western

[ChrisMaple]

The difference in type of carbs matters. In Asia it might be seaweed, in the West, potato chips.

Correlation or causation

[JohnStock]

I hope being scientists they know the difference.

Brought to you by ...

[PPH]

... Denny's.

Re:Bullshit

[wisdom_brewing]

In some cases, yes. Some peoples bodies do not feed the correct signals.

In most cases those people are confused and do not know what "Hungry" actually is and associate another feeling (maybe "Not completely satiated"?) with the need to gorge...

Like people who have never been truly thirsty and cannot appreciate water

I'm Proof of This

[eepok]

Last February, I committed to eating breakfast every day. By November, I had lost weight (44 lbs of fat!) felt healthier and better than I ever had.

Other variables
I stopped drinking alcohol
My breakfast on weekdays: 2 hard boiled eggs, 10 baby carrots (Changed from pastries)
My lunch on weekdays: turkey sandwich (Changed from burgers, tacos, soda, etc.)
My dinner on weekdays: Home-cooked chicken, fish, or lean pork with a bunch of veggies and some rice or pasta. (Changed from "anything delivery")
I had one "cheat day" a month where I could eat/drink anything I want.
I ran 2 miles in the morning 4 times a week and did a 10k on the weekend

So, as you can see, breakfast fixed everything!

Re:I'm Proof of This

[Tony Isaac]

So maybe running 8 miles a week had as much to do with your health as eating breakfast!

I rarely eat breakfast, but I otherwise eat a reasonably healthy diet and get good exercise. I'm not overweight, my blood pressure is 120/70, my heart rate is 50, and otherwise enjoy good health.

So for every individual example, there's a counter-example.

Obvious connection.

[Qbertino]

Those who breakfast are more chill than those who start the day off going 120%.

Sounds plausible to me.

Trust your gut

[Cro Magnon]

Well, my gut complains vigorously if I skip breakfast.

Doomed

[JohnFen]

Food is actively repulsive to me until I've been awake and active for a few hours.

So I guess I'm doomed.

In my experience...

[kaatochacha]

Most people I know who eat a large breakfast get up earlier, and are usually more physically fit: They're eating breakfast then hitting the gym.
Most people who don't are usually less active, rushing to work last minute ( strees..), and don't have time for breakfast.

Re:Correlation is not causation

[ChrisMaple]

Causation correlates with correlation. Causation causes correlation.

Maybe yes Maybe no Poor Heart Health

[Milo GrafX]

As a small child I learned being able to eat when your hungry is good . Being hungry and not having food is bad. As I got older I learned going without food when your body needs it is unhealthy as are a lot of things. preliminary findings although perhaps interesting are not definitive. In fact as the article stats its more likely linked to poor lifestyle. Another misleading title and a scathing indictment of our current level journalism. among other things.

Wrong end of the horse.

[Reziac]

Lack of morning appetite is a common hypothyroid symptom. (Incidentally, so are both insomnia and a need for more sleep than normal. See today's other discussion.)

Arteriosclerosis is caused by calcium being pulled out of the blood and deposited where it doesn't belong (arteries, also joints). Which is caused by low thyroid. Which also causes poor protein metabolism and consequent flabby heart syndrome (ie. future heart failure), and high blood cholesterol (because it's not transported efficiently into the cells where it can be used).

80% of people over age 50 have some degree of hypothyroidism at the tissue level, due to reduced conversion of T4 to T3 (TSH will still be in range, which is why it's critical to get a complete workup).

Examine and normalize thyroid first and foremost, and a host of health issues vanish without further treatment. Thyroid affects *EVERYTHING*, but hypo symptoms can appear unrelated (as varied as adult-onset tooth decay, some types of cancer, and most of what we think of as "normal aging") -- and are generally not recognised by current medical practice, which tends not to see the forest for the trees.

I sound like a broken record on this, but I read the research literature, and it's astounding how little has filtered down to general medical practice, and how seldom the symptoms are identified. A non-exhaustive list:

http://hypothyroidmom.com/300-...

Not to mention its end-stage, hyperparathyroidism (the body's response to low blood calcium, and probable root cause of osteoporosis).