Breakfast is often described as the most important meal of the day, and a new study has uncovered yet another reason to justify that claim.
Researchers recently found that a common breakfast habit was associated with a 29% higher risk of fatality, with the relationship appearing particularly concerning among people over 40.
However, not everyone was convinced the findings could meaningfully affect the health patterns of the average American.
“Repeat after me…correlation is not causation,” one person said.
Delaying breakfast was found to increase mortality risks in 29% of participants in a new study
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Most fitness advice out there focuses on what you should put on your plate for the first bite in the morning.
But scientists have concluded that meal timing matters far more, whether it’s pancakes or avocado toast.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 15% of American adults regularly skip breakfast and eat their first meal hours after waking up.
This habit could be silently affecting life expectancy, a new study said.
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Published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition on July 31, 2026, this study observed more than 31,000 adults aged 40 and older from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999–2018.
Participants were asked to record what they ate and when they ate within 24 hours, and analysis of that data found that the later participants ate their first meal, the greater the risk.
Those who ate their first meal later — after noon, specifically — had an increased risk of early mortality from any cause by 29%.
There is a 46% higher risk of cardiovascular collapse if one delays the first meal of the day to noon
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Those who ate breakfast between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. had a 10% higher risk of early demise than those who ate between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m.
The difference rose to 19% for those who ate between 10 a.m. and noon.
Eating after noon was linked to a 46% higher risk of fatality from cardiovascular complications compared with grabbing a bite between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m.
Those aged 50 years or older who ate later also had a shorter life expectancy by nearly 2.5 years on average.
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“However, this does not mean that 7-8 p.m. is a universally optimal dinner time for everyone,” senior author Zhilei Shan, from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, told Science Alert.
“Meal timing is an important cue for peripheral circadian rhythms,” Shan continued.
“A later first meal or late-night eating may contribute to circadian misalignment and metabolic disturbances, including impaired lipid and glucose metabolism.”
The study’s findings did not convince some viewers
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The findings don’t necessarily mean that the breakfast habit directly causes earlier demise.
Reverse causation is also a possibility. Previous studies suggest late eating may stem from poorer health, difficulty falling asleep, shift work schedules, or challenging socioeconomic circumstances.
“Therefore, later eating should be interpreted as a potential risk marker, and possibly a modifiable behavior, rather than definitive evidence of a direct causal effect,” Shan said.
“So much for the fasting trend,” one netizen reacted to the findings. Another said, “Stupid. People are at far greater risk from all the garbage they put into their bodies, regardless of when they eat.”
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“Humans aren’t meant to have three meals a day. That’s one of the many reasons everybody’s so fat,” wrote a third detractor.
Another study published in the Journal of Neurorestoratology in 2025 also discovered that people who regularly skipped breakfast had lower cognitive scores, were more likely to experience cognitive decline, and showed more signs of neurodegeneration than those who didn’t.
“The brain needs fuel to function properly,” said Raymond Romano, a clinical researcher at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “Skipping breakfast disrupts energy consumption in the brain.”
Skipping breakfast was previously linked to increased metabolic issues, including diabetes
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One more study in the same year pooled results from nine studies involving 118,385 participants and their breakfast habits.
It found that skipping breakfast was associated with a 10% increased risk of metabolic syndromes such as high blood pressure, high blood sugar, abdominal obesity, high triglycerides, and low HDL cholesterol.
Some studies claim that delaying breakfast helps reduce morning blood sugar spikes.
But a 2015 study found that it causes Postprandial Hyperglycemia in diabetic patients after lunch and dinner, associated with lower iGLP-1 and an impaired insulin response.
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However, some health experts argue for skipping or delaying breakfast to let the body benefit from fasting.
“Often described as the most important meal of the day, there are no hard and fast rules as to when you should eat breakfast,” said TV doctor Michael Mosley, known for creating the Fast 800 diet and popularising the 5:2 diet.
“If you prefer to skip it or eat it later, that’s fine; and by doing so you are extending your overnight fast – an effective form of intermittent fasting called TRE (Time Restricted Eating).”
“Drinking beer for breakfast,” one netizen joked about the warning
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