When people skip breakfast, their body's internal clock gets messed up, which makes it harder for their body to use sugar properly and causes more stress hormones.
Scientific Claim
Chronic skipping of breakfast disrupts circadian rhythms, leading to dysregulation of cortisol secretion and impaired insulin sensitivity.
Original Statement
“But when they looked at nine different observational studies, they saw wait a minute what's happening is that people are having these like circadian shifts that's affecting their metabolism. It's affecting insulin resistance because cortisol and our dal cues and our simple circadian rhythms impact our metabolism so much.”
Context Details
Domain
lifestyle
Population
human
Subject
Chronic skipping of breakfast
Action
disrupts
Target
circadian rhythms, leading to cortisol dysregulation and impaired insulin sensitivity
Intervention Details
Evidence from Studies
Supporting (3)
Association of Skipping Breakfast with Metabolic Syndrome and Its Components: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies
Skipping breakfast is linked to higher blood sugar and other health problems that happen when your body’s internal clock gets out of sync, which may mess with your hormones and how your body uses insulin.
Skipping breakfast for a week messed up the body’s internal clock, making it run late — like a clock that’s slow. This kind of clock trouble is known to mess with stress hormones and how the body handles sugar.
Technical explanation
This study directly tests the effect of skipping breakfast for 6 days on circadian rhythms in humans, finding a phase delay in core body temperature — a key circadian marker — without changes in sleep-wake cycles. While cortisol and insulin were not directly measured, circadian disruption is a known driver of cortisol dysregulation and insulin resistance, making this a strong indirect support for the assertion.
People who eat breakfast regularly have better blood sugar control. Skipping it makes it harder for the body to use insulin properly, which matches the claim that skipping breakfast harms metabolism.
Technical explanation
This paper directly links breakfast consumption frequency to insulin sensitivity (HOMA-IR) and glycemic control in humans. Regular breakfast intake is associated with better insulin sensitivity, implying that skipping breakfast — the inverse — disrupts metabolic regulation, supporting the assertion’s claim about impaired insulin sensitivity due to breakfast skipping.