Sunday Oct 20, 2013 (foodconsumer.org) -- A new study in the journal Circulation suggests that eating breakfast and eating dinner early can reduce the risk of coronary heart disease in men.

Frank Hu and colleagues from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, MA, USA conducted the study and found men who skipped breakfast were at 27% higher risk for coronary heart disease, compared with those who did not.

Studies have shown that eating or not eating breakfast can affect a person’s body weight status.   And body weight is associated with heart disease risk.  A recent study shows that overweight and obese people who ate a big breakfast lost more weight than those who ate a big dinner when both groups of subjects were using the same amount of calories per day.

According to the current study report, skipping meals has already been associated with obesity/overweight, high blood pressure, insulin resistance and elevated fasting lipid levels.  The current study sought to examine the effect of specific eating habits - eating breakfast or not and eating dinner late or not, on the risk of coronary heart disease.

Enrolled in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study were 26902 American men aged 45 to 82 years of age who were free of cardiovascular disease and cancer at baseline and during the 16-year follow-up, 1,527 men developed incident coronary heart disease.

It is not only that skipping breakfast increases the risk, but also that eating dinner late can boost the risk of coronary heart disease.  To be specific, those who ate dinner late, compared with those who did not eat dinner late were 55% more likely to suffer coronary heart disease.  These eating habits were also found to affect body mass index, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia and diabetes.

However, there is no association between eating frequency and the risk of coronary heart disease.

The study concluded "Eating breakfast was associated with significantly lower CHD risk in this cohort of male health professionals." (DL)