Omitting breakfast, especially harmful to diabetics
It is necessary to have breakfast. Experts say it by active and passive, but not everyone makes the case that should. On this occasion, another study puts the issue on the table again, warning of the risks of particular concern for diabetics: lPeople with type 2 diabetes who skip breakfast would have blood sugar spikes during the day.
The study, developed at the University of Tel Aviv, found that when 22 patients with type 2 diabetes did not eat breakfast there was an increase in hyperglycemia between lunch and dinner. Also, there was a loss of organic efficiency to process glucose or the ability to convert blood sugar into energy, explains Scientific American, which has echoed the research.
For the main researcher of the study, Daniela Jakubowicz, the findings of this work come to mean that reduce the amount of starch and sugars at lunch and dinner "They would not influence elevated blood glucose levels if patients also skipped breakfast."
Diabetes
In this regard, in Scientific American remind that the World Health Organization figures in one in ten people with diabetes in the world. "As in the study, most have type 2 diabetes, which is associated with obesity and aging; appears when the body can not produce or process enough insulin, "they say.
So, this study wanted to check the effects of not having breakfast in people with diabetes, and quoted in this university to 12 men and 10 women of about 57 years and overweight. They all arrived on an empty stomach for blood tests and were asked to consume two or three meals a day.
Two meals a day
The authors of the work monitored also these meals, so that everyone ate the same amount of calories at lunch and dinner. Two and four weeks after this first meeting, the researchers repeated the process, but this time eating breakfast.
The result was that the levels of blood sugar The days that participants skipped breakfast were 40 percent higher after lunch and 25 percent higher after dinner than the days that consumed the three meals of the day (breakfast, lunch and dinner).
The explanation of this is given by the main author of the study: By not having breakfast, the pancreas would not have been able to produce the right amount of insulin to control blood glucose levels.
The study, very relevant to defend the need for breakfast and even more so in diabetic people, has now another pending issue: buy those results with other research done with people who do not suffer from this disease to know if this same thing can happen (although to a lesser extent) to those people who do not suffer from this disease.
The importance of breakfast
Already in 2006 from the Ministry of Health warned of the importance of breakfast and the danger of children skipping this essential food. In a campaign launched to promote breakfast in Spanish homes, they encrypted 8% Spanish children who went to school without having breakfast. "It has been shown that the prevalence of obesity is higher in those people who eat a scarce breakfast or omit it," they say from the ministry.
In this regard, it has been found that for 19.3% of the child and youth population (1-24 years) breakfast consists only of a glass of milk, while for 56% the glass of milk is accompanied by a hydrate carbon (bread, cookies, etc.), which is still insufficient. In fact, only 7.5% of children eat a balanced breakfast consisting of milk, fruit or juice and carbohydrates.
"Breakfast is one of the most important times of the day and should cover at least 25% of the nutritional needs of the school", insist the experts, who indicate that the energy contribution of breakfast is of great importance, since it will allow to achieve an adequate physical and intellectual performance, in school tasks and in daily work.
The breakfast admits a varied food offer, But for it to have the best nutritional qualities it must include: dairy (a glass of milk, a yogurt, cheese of any kind); a cereal (preferably bread, but also cereal flakes, cookies, muffins, biscuits ...); a complement fat (preferably olive oil, but without maligning the butter, margarine ...); a fruit or its juice (any variety in season and diverse natural juices); jams, honey and, occasionally, ham or other type of cold cuts.
Angela R. Bonachera
