|
Eat
a Heart-healthy Breakfast
You've heard many times
that "Breakfast is the most important meal of
the day." Now, recent research confirms that
avoiding breakfast is one of the worst practices you
may develop. Why? Because the frequency of heart attack,
sudden death, and stroke peaks between 6:00 a.m. and
noon, with the highest incidence being between 8:00
a.m. and 10:00 a.m.
What mechanism within
the body could account for this significant jump in
sudden death in the early morning hours? We may have
an answer. Platelets-tiny elements in the blood that
keep us from bleeding to death if we get a cut-can
clump together inside our arteries due to cholesterol
or plaque buildup in the artery lining. It is in the
morning hours that platelets become the most activated
and tend to form these internal blood clots at the
greatest frequency.
However, eating even
a very light breakfast prevents the morning platelet
activation that is associated with heart attacks and
strokes. Studies performed at Memorial University
in St. Johns, Newfoundland found that eating a light,
very low-fat breakfast was critical in modifying the
morning platelet activation.
 |
 |
|
