A recent study conducted by experts from Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan, led by Dr. Yasuhiko Kubota, showed that skipping breakfast could put a person at risk of stroke, reported Medscape on Thursday.
The study, which was published on the journal Stroke, was based on previous reports from Asian and Western countries noting that skipping breakfast is linked with an increased rate of dyslipidemia, glucose intolerance, hypertension and obesity, which are contributing factors of cardiovascular diseases.
"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the associations of breakfast intake frequency with cardiovascular events that include not only CHD but also stroke and its subtypes in an Asian population," the researchers noted.
In order to arrive at their conclusion, the researchers analyzed data on 82,772 Japanese men and women from 1999 until 2010, who are between the ages 45 to 74 and do not have histories of cancer or heart disease, noted Web MD on Friday.
Over the 15-year period, researchers noted 3,772 cases of stroke, including 870 cases of coronary heart disease and 1,051 brain hemorrhage cases.
They have found that participants who skipped breakfast habitually were more at risk for stroke and heart disease, and a particularly increased chance of experiencing brain hemorrhage strokes, as compared to other participants who consumed breakfast daily.
The researchers however, did not find any association between the frequency of eating breakfast and the risk for cardiac disease.
One of cerebral hemorrhage's contributing factor is high blood pressure, especially in the morning. The researchers noted in their study that people who ate breakfast daily had lower chance of having an increased blood pressure.
The researchers noted that the study was based on observations and that other factors may not have been considered.
No guidelines encouraged adults to consume breakfast daily in order to prevent heart disease as there is not sufficient evidence to back up such recommendation.