Why a balanced breakfast could transform your health

Breakfast can take many forms depending on where you live, ranging from a light meal of cereal and toast to a hearty English-style fry-up. While it’s often called “the most important meal of the day” there are still no official guidelines on what it should actually look like.

Previous research has found that a high-quality breakfast is linked to better adiposity, healthy levels of cholesterol, and most importantly the best results came from a balanced meal rich in vegetables, healthy fats, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.

In a recent study, researchers investigated how the proportion of daily energy consumed at breakfast and food quality were related to changes in cardiometabolic traits such as body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, triglycerides, and kidney function in older adults with metabolic syndrome.

Interestingly, the research showed that both low energy and high energy and low-quality breakfasts were associated with higher obesity and triglycerides, and lower HDL cholesterol in high-risk older adults.

Triglycerides are a type of fat (lipid) found in your blood and are an important important measure of heart health.  HDL stands for high-density lipoproteins and is thought to be the good cholesterol as it carries LDL (bad) cholesterol away from the arteries and back to the liver, where the LDL is broken down and passed from the body.

Writing in Science Direct the research team explained that a breakfast containing 20 to 30 per cent of total daily caloric intake was linked to lower Body Mass Index (BMI) levels waist-circumference (WC) size, triglycerides, and higher HDL-C concentrations, and a high-quality breakfast was associated with healthier values of metabolic wellbeing.

“Individuals at high cardiovascular risk may benefit from a balanced breakfast to maintain a healthy body weight, waist circumference, lipid profile, and renal function,” they wrote.

The researchers followed 383 participants aged 55 between 75 over a 36 month time period who suffered from metabolic syndrome, which is a group of conditions that together raise your risk of coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and other serious health problems.

All participants ate breakfasts consisting of low-fat dairy, whole grains, protein, olive oil, nuts, and fruits, without specific guidance on portion sizes and completed three-day food records at baseline, 24 months, and 36 months.

After 36 months, the team found that participants who consumed less than 22 per cent of their daily energy at breakfast had a higher BMI regardless of their total intake of energy when compared to consumers of higher intakes in the study.

They also found that better-balanced breakfasts were also associated with lower waist circumference measurements which point to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

“Our findings show that an insufficient energy intake at breakfast is associated with greater adiposity, which concurs with previous evidence,” they wrote.

The researchers added that “while the ideal breakfast composition is debatable and there is no consensus on how to assess it, our findings are in line with another study suggesting that people who choose to consume fruit, unprocessed and unsweetened cereal flakes, nuts, and yogurt for breakfast tend to have lower abdominal obesity. ”

“Breakfast quality could modulate factors that may impact adiposity, as a high-quality breakfast (rich in protein and carbohydrates) decreased appetite, cravings, and postprandial ghrelin levels in a randomized controlled trial with adults with obesity.

“Our study is the first to associate a high-quality breakfast with lower triglyceride and higher HDL-C levels, something that can be explained by the association between lower adiposity and a better triglyceride and HDL-C status.”

IMPORTANT LEGAL INFO This article is of a general nature and FYI only, because it doesn’t take into account your personal health requirements or existing medical conditions. That means it’s not personalised health advice and shouldn’t be relied upon as if it is. Before making a health-related decision, you should work out if the info is appropriate for your situation and get professional medical advice.