Hearty Breakfast Reduces Metabolic Syndrome

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.Eating a high-fat breakfast instead of a high-fat dinner may help ward off metabolic syndrome disorders including obesity, insulin resistance and cardiovascular disease, according to new research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

The study, published online March 30 in the International Journal of Obesity, examined the influence exerted by the type of foods and specific timing of intake on the development of metabolic syndrome characteristics in mice. The findings revealed that mice fed a meal higher in fat after waking had normal metabolic profiles. In contrast, mice that ate a more carbohydrate-rich diet in the morning and consumed a high-fat meal at the end of the day saw increased weight gain, adiposity, glucose intolerance and other markers of the metabolic syndrome.

"Studies have looked at the type and quantity of food intake, but nobody has undertaken the question of whether the timing of what you eat and when you eat it influences body weight, even though we know sleep and altered circadian rhythms influence body weight," said the study's lead author Molly Bray, PhD, professor of epidemiology in the UAB School of Public Health.

Researchers found that fat intake at the time of waking seems to turn on fat metabolism very efficiently and also turns on the animal's ability to respond to different types of food later in the day. When the animals were fed carbohydrates upon waking, carbohydrate metabolism was turned on and seemed to stay on even when the animal was eating different kinds of food later in the day.

"The first meal you have appears to program your metabolism for the rest of the day," said study senior author Martin Young, PhD, associate professor of medicine in the UAB Division of Cardiovascular Disease. "This study suggests that if you ate a carbohydrate-rich breakfast it would promote carbohydrate utilization throughout the rest of the day, whereas, if you have a fat-rich breakfast, you have metabolic plasticity to transfer your energy utilization between carbohydrate and fat."