Breakfast and diabetes: What's the connection? (November 14 is World Diabetes Day)

Business Standard: You have heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Breakfast, as the name implies, is to break the fast between dinner and lunch.

It is well-established that starting the day with a wholesome breakfast can benefit everyone. If you have type 2 diabetes (T2D), breakfast is necessary and it can have real benefits.

Do you think that skipping breakfast can help manage your blood glucose better? Researchers say the opposite is true. In a study, 22 people who controlled their T2D with diet alone or diet plus metformin were studied on two different days. On one, they ate three identical meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner. On the other, they ate only lunch and dinner. On the days they skipped breakfast, their peak blood glucose was 36.8 per cent higher after lunch and 26.6 per cent higher after dinner than on the days they ate breakfast.

Another study highlighted that a high-energy intake breakfast of around 700 kcals (vs a low energy breakfast of 200 kcals) decreased the overall high blood sugar (hyperglycaemia) in T2D patients over the entire day. It has been established that better management of blood sugar has been associated with preventing complications of diabetes.

Regular consumption of breakfast is potentially important for preventing T2D. A recent study tested 17 healthy adults on three separate days: Once when they skipped breakfast, once when they had three regular meals and once when they skipped dinner. Skipping breakfast led to higher glucose concentrations after lunch than skipping dinner. BS