Browse evidence-based analysis of health-related claims and assertions
The studies included were well done, so the link between skipping breakfast and health problems is probably real and not just due to bad study design.
Descriptive
The link between skipping breakfast and health problems isn't the same everywhere — it's stronger in some countries than others, probably because of different diets or lifestyles.
Correlational
Not everyone who skips breakfast has higher fat levels in their blood — some studies found no link, meaning other factors like diet or lifestyle might matter more.
For some people, skipping breakfast might raise blood pressure more in men than in women — or even lower it in women — suggesting gender plays a role.
The link between skipping breakfast and metabolic syndrome is a bit stronger when the diagnosis includes diabetes or high fasting blood sugar, compared to just high fasting sugar alone.
Skipping breakfast may make it harder for your body to control blood sugar, raising your risk of high blood sugar levels.
People who skip breakfast may have higher levels of unhealthy fats in their blood, which can increase heart disease risk.
Skipping breakfast may raise your chances of having high blood pressure, even after accounting for other health factors.
People who skip breakfast tend to have more belly fat than those who eat it, though the link isn't super strong.
People who skip breakfast are slightly more likely to have a group of health problems like high blood pressure, belly fat, and high blood sugar than those who eat breakfast.
Eating more dairy while dieting didn’t make bad cholesterol go up or good cholesterol go down—it didn’t hurt heart health markers at all.
Causal
Even though people ate more dairy, their body didn’t make more of the active form of vitamin D—so the hormone that might affect fat cells stayed the same.
Eating more dairy didn’t change the hormone that regulates calcium in the blood—so the body’s calcium system didn’t respond the way some theories predicted.
Eating more dairy doesn’t make your body burn more calories at rest—your metabolism stayed the same whether you ate a lot or a little dairy while dieting.
People who ate more dairy didn’t move more or less than those who ate less dairy—both groups were equally active, so activity levels didn’t affect the results.
People who ate more dairy had slightly different metabolism after meals even before the diet started, so any difference seen later wasn’t caused by the dairy they ate during the diet.
Whether people eat a lot or a little dairy while dieting, their blood levels of inflammation markers and hormones like insulin and leptin change the same way—dairy doesn’t make a difference.
Eating more dairy while dieting doesn’t reduce inflammation in fat tissue—both groups had the same levels of immune cells and inflammatory signals in their fat.
Eating more dairy doesn’t make fat cells shrink faster when people are on a diet—both groups’ fat cells got smaller at about the same rate.
People who eat more dairy while dieting end up with higher levels of vitamin D in their blood than those who eat less dairy—even if they both started out low on vitamin D.
When overweight or obese people eat fewer calories and either eat a little dairy or a lot of dairy, they lose about the same amount of weight and belly fat—dairy doesn’t help them lose more.
To stop metabolic diseases, doctors might need new treatments that make small fat cells grow, create new fat cells, and shrink big ones.
Scientists don’t know enough about how the whole mix of small and big fat cells works together to affect health.
Even small fat cells can be unhealthy and unable to grow when needed, which might cause problems too.