Breakfast isn’t just the most important meal of the day, it’s a key factor in healthy aging. Researchers now found that it is not only essential to have breakfast, but also to ensure that it is both high in quality and appropriate in quantity. A recent study found that consuming 20 to 30% of your daily calories at breakfast is linked to better long-term health.
In the latest study, researchers explored how the energy intake and quality of breakfast impact key health indicators like cholesterol, blood pressure, body weight, and other cardiometabolic factors. For the trial, researchers followed up with 383 participants between the ages of 55 and 75 with metabolic syndrome for 3 years.
The results showed that individuals who ate breakfast had better overall diet quality and lower cardiometabolic risk. “Healthy breakfast habits relate to healthy aging by improving heart risk factors,” the researchers wrote in the study published in the Journal of Nutrition, Health, and Aging.
Among those who consumed breakfast, both low and high-energy, low-quality breakfasts were associated with higher body fat, elevated triglycerides, and lower HDL cholesterol in older adults at high risk. The study also revealed that low-quality breakfasts were linked to poorer kidney function.
“Individuals at high cardiovascular risk may benefit from a balanced breakfast to maintain a healthy body weight, waist circumference, lipid profile, and renal function. A breakfast containing 20−30% of total caloric intake was linked to lower values of BMI, WC, triglycerides, and higher HDL-C concentrations, and a high-quality breakfast was associated with healthier values of WC, HDL-C, and eGFR,” the researchers wrote.
The new findings build on the idea that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” and suggest it should be rephrased to include “What and how you eat it matters,” said Álvaro Hernáez, a lead researcher of the study.
According to the study findings, for a person who takes a 2,000-calorie diet, breakfast should provide around 400-600 calories. In terms of quality, the focus is on achieving balanced meals that include whole grains, lean proteins, healthy fats, and fruits or vegetables while steering clear of processed foods that are high in added sugars and unhealthy fats.
