Recent scientific research has revealed a shocking finding: each hour of delay in eating breakfast is associated with a 6% increase in the risk of death among people over sixty.
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The results, reached by researchers from Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital, open new avenues for understanding how eating patterns can provide insights into an individual’s overall health.
Dr. Hassan Dashti, a nutrition and chronobiology scientist at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, who led the study, said:
“Breakfast timing can be an easily observable marker of individuals’ general health status.”
He noted that shifts in meal timing could serve as an “early warning” to investigate underlying physical and mental health problems.
Dr. Dashti analyzed data from about 3,000 adults in the UK, with an average age of 64, from a University of Manchester study.
Participants reported their meal times and completed health and lifestyle questionnaires over several years.
Researchers found that as people age, they tend to delay both breakfast and dinner. Those with more health problems, or a genetic tendency toward staying up late, also tended to eat later.
Late breakfasts were linked to both physical and mental health issues, including fatigue, poor oral health, depression, and anxiety.
They were also associated with a slightly higher chance of death during a 10-year follow-up period.
After adjusting for other factors such as age, gender, education level, and lifestyle, each hour of delay in breakfast was associated with a 6% higher risk of death.
However, the study’s authors stress that there is no direct cause-and-effect relationship between late breakfasts and death, but rather a correlation. This means that eating breakfast late may not directly shorten life, but it may point to underlying health problems, lifestyle habits, or biological differences that affect health — insights that could be valuable for general practitioners.
Dr. Dashti said:
“Until now, our understanding has been limited regarding how meal timing evolves later in life and how these shifts relate to overall health and longevity. Our findings help fill this gap by showing that later meal timing — especially delayed breakfast — is linked to health challenges and increased mortality risk among older adults. These results add new meaning to the saying ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day,’ particularly for older individuals.”
Source: The Independent
