Association of breakfast intake with cardiometabolic risk factors

Objective: this study aimed to evaluate the association of breakfast intake with cardiometabolic risk factors in a nationally-representative sample of Iranian pediatrics. Methods: the study participants considered of 5,625 school students aged 10-18 years, studied in the third survey of the national school-based surveillance system (CASPIAN-III). They were classified into three groups based on the number of days they ate breakfast: regular breakfast eater (6-7days/week), often breakfast eater (3-5days/week), and seldom breakfast eater (0-2 days/week). Metabolic syndrome (MetS) was defined based on the Adult Treatment Panel III (ATP III) criteria modified for the pediatric age group. Moreover, high total cholesterol, high low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and generalized obesity were included as other cardiometabolic risk factors. Multiple logistic regression analyses were used to evaluate the association between the breakfast intake category and cardiometabolic risk factors. Results: the number of subjects classified as regular, often and seldom breakfast eaters were 2,653(47.3%), 1,327(23.7%) and 1,624(29.0%), respectively. The average of triglycerides (TG), LDL-C, systolic blood pressure (SBP) and body mass index (BMI) were higher in the seldom breakfast eater group (P for trend<0.001), whereas the mean of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) was lower in this group than their other counterparts. Seldom breakfast eaters had an increased risk of obesity, elevated TG and HDL-C, as well as low HDL-C compared toregular breakfast eaters. The risk of MetS was significantly increased in subjects who seldom ate breakfast (OR 1.96, 95% CI 1.18-3.27). Conclusions: skipping breakfast is associated with increased risk of MetS and other cardiometabooic factors in children and adolescents. Promoting the benefit of eating breakfast could be a simple and important implication to prevent these risk factors. (C) 2013 Sociedade Brasileira de Pediatria. Published by Elsevier Editora Ltda. All rights reserved.