AHA Report Suggests Meal Timing Impacts Heart Health

Since 2016, Dr. Erol Onel has served as vice president of Heron Therapeutics, where he has spearheaded an effort to get a new non-opioid pain drug to market. Outside of his work life, Dr. Erol Onel supports numerous charitable organizations, including the American Heart Association (AHA).

According to researchers at the AHA, eating breakfast every morning and having a set plan on when to eat meals lead to healthier overall diets and a decreased risk of heart disease. This opinion was published in a recent issue of Circulation, an AHA peer-reviewed journal.

According to Columbia University nutrition professor Marie-Pierre St-Onge, PhD, the time at which a person eats each day can have an impact on heart health, given its effect on the internal clock. While eating healthy foods is still the biggest factor of cardiovascular health, studies have shown that individuals who eat breakfast every morning are less apt to experience high blood pressure or increased cholesterol levels. Conversely, those who do not eat breakfast every day are more likely to be overweight, have poor nutrition, and experience a higher risk of developing diabetes. 

There have yet to be any large-scale studies that track meal timing over significant periods of time, however. Dr. St-Onge said that more research needs to be conducted to confirm how the timing of when a person eats affects his or her health over a long-term period.