HEALTHLINE – Eating a substantial breakfast is important for heart health, but what you eat at that first meal of the day is also important.
That’s the conclusion of a new study published in the Journal of Nutrition, Health and Aging.
Researchers examined the average energy intake of breakfast meals compared to a person’s total daily intake and the quality of the morning meals in terms of proteins, fats, fibers, and other nutrients.
They concluded that a person who consumes an adequate amount of calories at breakfast and does so with high-quality food is at a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.
“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but what and how you eat it matters,” said Álvaro Hernáez, a researcher at the Hospital del Mar Research Institute’s CIBER for Cardiovascular Diseases (CIBERCV) in Spain, in a press release.
“Eating controlled amounts — not too much or too little — and ensuring good nutritional composition is crucial. Our data show that quality is associated with better cardiovascular risk factor outcomes. It’s as important to have breakfast as it is to have a quality one,” Hernáez continued.
How a healthy breakfast affects heart health
For their study, researchers examined 383 participants in the PREDIMED-Plus Project, a randomized clinical trial that compared the effects of a Mediterranean diet and regular physical activity with dietary recommendations.
Participants were between the ages of 55 and 75 and were classified as overweight or having obesity.
They also had at least three criteria for metabolic syndrome, a group of five risk factors that can increase the likelihood of heart disease, diabetes, and stroke.
The participants were followed for three years with measurements taken at the beginning of the study as well as at 24 months and 36 months …
