Diabetes patients, avoid late breakfasts to stay away from obesity, higher BMI

Diabetes patients, take note: If you delay your breakfast, you are exposing yourself to more chances of having a higher Body Mass Index (BMI), which will eventually lead to obesity and many more complications.

A recent study by the University of Illinois at Chicago says that an ‘evening person’ has higher body mass indices among individuals who have Type II diabetes, and the reason for this is that they delay having breakfast in the morning.

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Obesity has been associated with those who sleep late and get up late, however, research had been lacking in connecting this phenomenon with people who have Type II diabetes.

Researchers who were led by Sirimon Reutrakul, wanted to find out if having a morning or evening preference in those with Type II diabetes meant more chances of a higher BMI.

Reutrakul and other researchers spoke with 210 non-shift workers based in Thailand with Type II diabetes for the study. There was a questionnaire where they were asked about their waking up and sleeping time, what time they exercised and when would they do activities such as reading or working during their day.

The average sleep duration was 5.5 hours/night and participants consumed 1,103 kcal/day. They had an average BMI of 28.4 kg/m2 (considered overweight) and 97 participants had evening preference while 113 preferred the morning. Those who preferred the morning would have breakfast between 7 a.m. and 8:30 a.m., while those who slept late would have it between 7:30 a.m. and 9 a.m.

“Later breakfast time is a novel risk factor associated with a higher BMI among people with Type 2 diabetes,” said Reutrakul. “It remains to be investigated if eating breakfast earlier will help with body weight in this population.”

The study’s findings were published in the journal Diabetic Medicine.

With inputs from ANI

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