Habitually Skipping Breakfast Is Associated with the Risk of GI Cancers

I&#x27;d love to see the results parsed by <i>reason</i> for skipping breakfast.<p>I used to intentionally skip breakfast as a part of an intermittent fasting routing. I wasn&#x27;t particularly strict about it, and I didn&#x27;t really buy into the ketogenesis arguments. But it was a calorie restriction scheme that worked for my lifestyle.<p>Fast forward a few years, and while I still miss breakfast a lot, I find now it&#x27;s because of work stress. It seems like I can&#x27;t ever get out of bed in the morning without being immediately greeted by some &quot;emergency&quot; that popped up overnight, and jumping into that before I&#x27;ve really had any opportunity to start the day on my own terms.<p>I can&#x27;t help but feel like the latter is going to be a lot more correlated with health problems down the road than the former.

So we are now off of fasting?<p>Not that I keep up with the (largely junk) nutritional studies, but this blurb surprised me:<p>&gt;...In recent years, breakfast skipping has been proven to be associated with obesity,9 impaired glucose metabolism,10 cardiovascular disease,11 impaired cognitive function,12 and even cancer.13 Recently, a prospective study conducted in China found that habitually skipping breakfast is associated with chronic inflammation, as assessed by the C-reactive protein (CRP) concentration.14<p>Was this funded by the Chinese-Kellogg equivalent?

Having GI issues that end up becoming cancerous is also associated with not feeling like eating in the morning because you have GI issues.<p>N=1 here, but I have IBD and immediate family history of rectal cancer, and I definitely feel the worst in the mornings. That kind of pain is <i>strongly</i> correlated with not wanting to put food in my mouth.

Please, mind, this is only showing correlation. No cause&#x2F;effect relation.<p>It might be that people who have GI problems are more likely to skip breakfast. Or there might be something else that causes both.<p>Be careful when reading studies...

Can someone explain to me what &quot;Is Associated&quot; means in this context? I know there are always comments about correlation&#x2F;causation here, but I genuinely don&#x27;t have enough of a stats background to actually understand what they are claiming.<p>If they have tried to control for confounding variables (people who skip breakfast are generally more unhealthy&#x2F;more likely to be drug users&#x2F;more likely to smoke, etc), what are the methods they use? Are they reliable?<p>I find myself thinking about making serious lifestyle changes in response to these articles, but many of them contradict each other.

How many random correlations did they try before they found this one?

Looking at Table 1, I wonder if this is an effect of increased variance in smaller populations? Table 2 kind of feels like it&#x27;s trending that way.<p>Also, apparently in 2014 there was an article describing Xi Jinping&#x27;s lifestyle, which reported he ate breakfast daily before dawn. This study started in 2014. Probably a total coincidence, but ...<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.latimes.com&#x2F;world&#x2F;asia&#x2F;la-fg-glimpse-president-xi-china-20141027-story.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.latimes.com&#x2F;world&#x2F;asia&#x2F;la-fg-glimpse-president-x...</a>

Perhaps I missed it, but I couldn&#x27;t see the bit where they controlled for other risk factors. So they basically just seem to be reporting a correlation.<p>Or is there more to this?

ITT: cope. Even if you still believe there are benefits to TRF that aren&#x27;t just due to losing weight (and note that TRF causes a disproportionate amount of <i>muscle-loss</i>, not <i>fat-loss</i>, when used as a weight-loss tool: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jamanetwork.com&#x2F;journals&#x2F;jamainternalmedicine&#x2F;fullarticle&#x2F;2771095" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jamanetwork.com&#x2F;journals&#x2F;jamainternalmedicine&#x2F;fullar...</a>), Satchin Panda, arguably the foremost researcher in this field, has been unequivocal that early TRF is much worse than late TRF (i.e., skipping breakfast instead of skipping dinner) for metabolic health, probably due to circadian misalignment, so I don&#x27;t see why you all find this result so surprising.<p>Apparently none of you have heard of Dr. Panda, which means you&#x27;ve done barely any research into any of this, and yet you&#x27;re still smugly confident that TRF&#x2F;IF are safe and healthy? Enough to nit-pick the studies saying otherwise, and downvote and flag those posting them?

skipping breakfast causes cancer? linked to obesity even? Did the study establish a causal relationship, or is it merely observing a correlation? A longitudinal study that tracks participants over time may provide stronger evidence than a cross-sectional study. Were other factors (e.g., smoking, exercise, diet, etc.) controlled for in the study?<p>sounds like bullshit.

When I look at paper titles I like to switch the words around to see if the paper is talking about correlation or causation. If the title was changed to &quot;People with high GI cancer risk tend to habitually skip breakfast&quot; does anything need to change in the paper?

The study is based on self-reported responses to “How many days do you generally consume breakfast in a typical week?” (in Chinese) ... it&#x27;s an interesting question that clearly must have a customary&#x2F;social component. As an annoying pedant I&#x27;d be compelled to answer &quot;every day&quot; based on the definition of breakfast as the first meal of the day. I don&#x27;t know how the term or the custom translates to coal miners of eastern Tangshan province, though.

I&#x27;m scanning through the article but I cant find where they define what &quot;breakfast&quot; means in terms of portion size or caloric intake?

Good that they say &#x27;associated&#x27; because causality is non-trivial to establish, at least given the current state of math frameworks.

But I thought intermittent fasting was the way to go?

Does skipping breakfast correlate with a lower daily intake of dietary fiber?

Could skipping breakfast means the person eats unhealthily in general since skipping breakfast is associated with bad health behaviour anyways. What if that person skips breakfast but heats great in other meals, this is what they should test

Is a morning cigarette skipping breakfast?

Impossible to skip breakfast unless you never eat. Breakfast is simply the first meal of the day when you break fasted state.