London - It may leave you choking on your cornflakes.
But claims that breakfast is the most important meal of the day have little scientific basis, a study suggests.
Researchers said it does not seem to make much difference if we eat or fast until lunch - because skipping breakfast won’t make you fatter by making you overeat later on.
It has previously been suggested that the first meal of the day boosts your metabolism and makes you less likely to put on weight.
However, Dr James Betts, a senior lecturer in nutrition at the University of Bath, said these benefits do not stand up to scrutiny.
He explained that studies that seem to show the benefits of breakfast are “largely assumptions based on observational studies and had never actually been tested”.
Adding that many doctors recommend that their overweight patients eat breakfast, he told New Scientist magazine: “We try not to give other health advice without evidence, so why are we more lax with breakfast?”
To test whether breakfast boosts our health, Dr Betts asked one group of subjects to eat a breakfast of 700 calories or more, while the others had to drink just water until lunch. He found that those who skipped breakfast ate more at lunch - but not enough to make up the 700 calorie deficit.
The results also disproved the view that eating breakfast will lead to people becoming hungrier later in the day. Tests showed that levels of ghrelin - the “hunger hormone” - at lunchtime were similar in both groups. After lunch the ghrelin levels of those who had fasted dropped - but remained high among the breakfast eaters. Skipping breakfast did not affect fat levels or make people gain weight.
Professor Peter Rogers of Bristol University, who specialises in nutrition psychology, said: “Most of us could do with eating less...maybe skipping breakfast occasionally could be that opportunity.”
Kaori O’Connor,a social anthropologist at University College London, said: “Let’s not trash the benefits of breakfast all together, but it’s safe to say that the idea that it is healthy in its own right was laid on a plate for us by marketing companies.”
Daily Mail