Skipping Breakfast Leads to Weight Gains: Study

November 2, 2018

Nagoya- Skipping breakfast disrupts internal body clocks and leads to weight gains, a recent study by a Japanese team has shown.

The study of the team, led by Hiroaki Oda, associate professor at Nagoya University Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, was published online by the U.S. scientific journal PLOS One on Wednesday.

In the study, the team divided 56 rats into two groups and gave the same amount of high-fat feed to both groups for 14 days. Rats eat feed intermittently when they are awake.

One group was given the feed normally and the other group four hours after the rats woke up. The team regarded the former group of rats as a model for people who have breakfast at 8 a.m. and the other as those who skip breakfast.

After 14 days, the latter group of rats gained some 7 to 8 pct more weight on average than normal.

Analysis of liver genes found that there was a four-hour delay in the activities of the clock genes of rats in the latter group and the rats had a shorter period of high body temperatures.

The result suggests that the rats gained weight as body clock disruptions reduced energy consumption due to less activities, the team said.

"The rats showed that skipping breakfast causes weight gains," Oda said. "The study is applicable to humans." Jiji Press