Swapping Breakfast And Dinner Meals May Slash Heart Disease Risk

If you've seen the studies on plant-based diets and their related health benefits, but can't bring yourself to adopt the diet yourself, there may be a less drastic option. According to a new study published by the Endocrine Society, eating a plant-based meal at dinnertime may be enough to 'significantly' reduce your risk of developing heart disease.

For many people, dinner is often their biggest meal of the day. These meals often contain fatty meats like red meat, as well as excessive refined carbohydrates like bread and pasta. The new study found that eating this kind of dinner can increase the risk of heart disease compared to eating a similar meal for breakfast.

It's not just the quality of the food you eat, but also the timing of your meals that influence heart disease risk, according to the new study. The researchers found that people who eat a dinnertime meal featuring things like unsaturated fats and whole carbs have a 10-percent lower chance of developing heart disease.

Of course, the best way to protect one's health is to always eat healthy foods. However, the study notes that if you plan to eat refined carbohydrates and meat, it may be better to do so in the morning for breakfast rather than in the evening for dinner.

Someone who, for example, consumes a bowl of oatmeal with nuts and fresh fruit for breakfast may be better off saving that meal for dinnertime, at least based on this new research. The study comes from Harbin Medical University in China, where the researchers analyzed National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data on nearly 28,000 adults in the US.