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When 22 patients with type 2 diabetes missed their morning meal, they had higher-than-usual surges in blood sugar after lunch and dinner, observes a study published in Diabetes Care. Skipping breakfast was also linked to less efficient processing of glucose by the body, or a reduced ability to convert blood sugar into energy.

The current study involved 12 men and 10 women who were about 57 years old on average and overweight. On test days, patients were asked to fast overnight, then come to the clinic for blood tests and either two or three meals, depending on which part of the experiment they were completing. Participants consumed the same balanced meal with the same number of calories for lunch and dinner.

Two to four weeks later, they repeated the process, but switching to either eat or skip breakfast – whatever they hadn’t done in the first phase. On test days when patients skipped breakfast, their blood sugar was 40 percent higher after lunch and 25 percent higher after dinner than on the days when they had three meals.

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