Cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks or strokes are the leading cause of death worldwide, with nearly 19 million deaths each year. Almost half are attributable to modifiable risk factors such as network diet Global Burden of Diseases. The composition of our plates as well as our eating habits would therefore have a direct influence on our heart risk.
In Nature magazineFrench researchers, notably from INRAE and INSERM, wanted to determine the time at which to have breakfast to minimize the occurrence of cardiovascular diseases such as stroke. They analyzed the data and food intake rates of 103,000 people followed between 2009 and 2022, 79% of whom were women with an average age of 42 years. Their results show that skipping breakfast or eating it late is associated with an increase in body weight, the level of fats in the liver and the level of adipose tissue, three parameters that increase the risk of having cardiovascular diseases.
According to these researchers, you should try to respect three things: avoid skipping breakfast, avoid eating a late breakfast and allow the body a nighttime fasting period of around 12 hours. But the later we eat breakfast, the more we increase our cardiovascular risk (an increase of 6% in cardiovascular risk per hour, especially in women). Concretely, a person who has breakfast at 9 a.m. has 6% more risk than a person who has breakfast at 8 a.m. and 12% more risk than a person who has breakfast at 7 a.m. . So ideally, you should have breakfast before 8 a.m., but not too early either to have a 12-hour nighttime fasting period: for example, have dinner in the evening at 7:30 p.m. and have breakfast in the morning at 7:30 a.m.
Obviously, the composition of breakfast has an important role in the occurrence of cardiovascular diseases. The French Federation of Cardiology recommends taking a hot or cold drink to rehydrate (tea, coffee, infusion, glass of milk or glass of water), a protein product (yogurt, fromage blanc, petit-suisse, cheese, trout, egg…); a complete cereal product to keep you satisfied (Nordic bread, muesli without added sugar, oatmeal, etc.) and a fresh, whole seasonal fruit.