Missing breakfast may put diabetics at risk

Fasting until noon triggers major blood sugar spikes and impairs the insulin responses of Type-2 diabetics throughout the rest of the day.

Previous research has linked skipping breakfast to an increased risk for weight gain and diabetes, Jakubowicz and colleagues note in the journal Diabetes Care.

A new study says that diabetics who skip breakfast may have elevated blood sugar levels throughout the day.

The researchers found that participants experienced extraordinary glucose peaks of 268 mg/dl (milligram per decilitre) after lunch and 298 mg/dl after dinner on days they skipped breakfast versus only 192 mg/dl and 215 mg/dl after eating an identical lunch and dinner when they ate breakfast.

“The study, therefore, shows that breakfast is of major importance for glucose homeostasis, including islet function and incretin hormones, throughout the day”, the researchers wrote.

Daniela Jakubowicz, a professor of Tel Aviv said that the team conjectured that the elimination of breakfast would be unhealthy, but it was a surprise for them to notice such a “high degree of deterioration of glucose metabolism”, exclusively because the participants skipped their breakfast.

Globally, about one in 10 adults have diabetes, according to the World Health Organisation.

Two to four weeks later, they repeated the process, but switching to either eat or skip breakfast – whatever they hadn’t done in the first phase. The only distinction was that while one day they had breakfast the other day they skipped it and fasted until noon.

Skipping breakfast may have made it hard for the pancreas to produce the right amount of insulin to properly control blood sugar, Jakubowicz said.

“This implies decreasing measure of starch and carbohydrates in lunchtime and feast should have no impact on minimizing amplified blood sugar levels if people also omit breakfast”, she told me electronically.

The research team illustrated that pancreatic beta cells that yield insulin lose their “memory” or in simple words “forget” their important part, as a result of the long gap between one’s dinner and next day’s lunch.

Plasma free fatty acids and glucagon levels were significantly higher after lunch and dinner in those who did not eat breakfast, according to researchers.

A late dinner might lead to high blood sugar the next day, Zilberter, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.