Skipping breakfast good or bad: As per the recent study, skipping breakfast is not good for health as it can raise the chances of heart disease and make it harder to fight against diseases.
Moreover, skipping breakfast can causes the brain to react in a way that harms immune cells. The findings, which centre on breakfast, were released in the Immunity journal and may help researchers better understand how long-term fasting may influence the body.
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As per the PhD, Director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at Icahn Mount Sinai, "There is a growing awareness that fasting is healthy, and there is indeed abundant evidence for the benefits of fasting. Our study provides a word of caution as it suggests that there may also be a cost to fasting that carries a health risk."
"This is a mechanistic study delving into some of the fundamental biology relevant to fasting. The study shows that there is a conversation between the nervous and immune systems."
Researchers aimed to better understand how fasting -- from a relatively short fast of only a few hours to a more severe fast of 24 hours -- affects the immune system. They analyzed two groups of mice. One group ate breakfast right after waking up (breakfast is their largest meal of the day), and the other group had no breakfast. Researchers collected blood samples in both groups when mice woke up (baseline), then four hours later, and eight hours later.
When examining the blood work, researchers noticed a distinct difference in the fasting group. Specifically, the researchers saw a difference in the number of monocytes, which are white blood cells that are made in the bone marrow and travel through the body, where they play many critical roles, from fighting infections to heart disease, to cancer.
This study is among the first to make the connection between the brain and these immune cells during fasting. Researchers found that specific regions in the brain controlled the monocyte response during fasting.
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"The study shows that, on the one hand, fasting reduces the number of circulating monocytes, which one might think is a good thing, as these cells are important components of inflammation. On the other hand, the reintroduction of food creates a surge of monocytes flooding back into the blood, which can be problematic. Fasting, therefore regulates this pool in ways that are not always beneficial to the body's capacity to respond to a challenge such as an infection," said Dr. Swirski.