Can Skipping Breakfast Backfire? Scientists Reexamine Metabolic Risk
For years, breakfast advice has swung wildly—from never skip it to fasting is the key to longevity.
And I’ll be honest. Even as someone who spends her days reading nutrition research, my own breakfast habits have gone through phases. Some mornings I wake up hungry; others, coffee feels like enough. But new research suggests that regularly skipping breakfast may come with metabolic trade-offs that are worth paying attention to, especially when it comes to blood pressure and blood sugar.
A newly published systematic review and meta-analysis1 in Nutrients pulls together data from nearly 120,000 people to examine how skipping breakfast relates to metabolic syndrome, a cluster of risk factors that dramatically raises the odds of heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
And while the findings don’t mean everyone needs to force down a morning meal, they do suggest that when we eat may matter more than we once thought.
What this study looked at (and why it matters)
To get a clearer picture of breakfast’s role in metabolic health, researchers analyzed nine observational studies, including both cross-sectional and long-term cohort designs. Together, these studies followed over 118,000 adults across different countries and populations.
The researchers focused on one specific behavior—skipping breakfast—and how it related to metabolic syndrome and its individual components: abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, elevated blood sugar, unhealthy cholesterol levels, and triglycerides.
Importantly, this was a meta-analysis, meaning the researchers didn’t rely on a single dataset. Instead, they pooled results to look for consistent patterns across diverse groups. While observational studies can’t prove cause and effect, they’re powerful for identifying real-world trends, especially when results point in the same direction repeatedly.
The strongest signals: Blood pressure, blood sugar & waist circumference
Across the board, skipping breakfast was linked to a higher risk of metabolic syndrome. But some associations stood out more than others.
People who regularly skipped breakfast had:
- A 21% higher risk of hypertension
- A 26% higher risk of elevated blood sugar
- A 17% higher risk of abdominal obesity
- Higher odds of unhealthy blood lipids, including elevated triglycerides and lower HDL (“good”) cholesterol
Taken together, these markers paint a picture of metabolic strain, especially on the cardiovascular system.
One reason this pattern makes sense biologically is circadian timing. Our bodies are primed to handle glucose, insulin, and energy intake earlier in the day. Skipping breakfast can push calorie intake later, often leading to larger meals, sharper blood sugar spikes, and increased insulin demand. Over time, that metabolic mismatch may contribute to insulin resistance, inflammation, and higher blood pressure.
Skipping breakfast isn’t the same as intermittent fasting
This is where nuance really matters. The researchers make an important distinction between unstructured breakfast skipping and intentional time-restricted eating.
Intermittent fasting, when done deliberately, with adequate nutrition and consistent timing, often includes a defined eating window and balanced meals. Breakfast skipping, on the other hand, tends to happen haphazardly and is often paired with poorer diet quality, irregular schedules, and compensatory overeating later in the day.
In other words, the metabolic benefits seen in fasting studies don’t automatically apply if breakfast skipping is just a side effect of rushed mornings and under-fueling.
What a longevity-supportive breakfast actually looks like
This study doesn’t suggest breakfast needs to be large, but it does highlight the importance of what you eat first.
A metabolically supportive breakfast tends to include:
Even something small, like yogurt with berries and chia seeds, can provide a meaningful metabolic signal to your body.
The takeaway
Skipping breakfast won’t derail your health overnight. But this growing body of research suggests that making a habit of it may quietly increase the risk of high blood pressure, blood sugar issues, and abdominal fat over time.
These findings are encouraging because breakfast is a highly modifiable behavior. You don’t need to overhaul your diet—just rethink your mornings. A simple, protein-forward meal could be one of the easiest ways to support long-term cardiometabolic health.