Late breakfasts and early mortality? Research links meal timing to lifespan

New research reveals that meal timings gradually shift as people age, suggesting that certain trajectories of eating patterns could be linked to earlier mortality. Specifically, a later breakfast time was “consistently associated” with having physical and mental health conditions such as depression, fatigue, and oral health problems. This was tied to participants’ struggles with meal preparation and worse sleep. 

Individuals genetically predisposed to characteristics associated with being a “night owl” — preferring later sleep and wake times — tended to eat meals later.

Through follow-up reporting, the researchers also linked these later breakfasts to an increased incidence of death.

“Our research suggests that changes in when older adults eat, especially the timing of breakfast, could serve as an easy-to-monitor marker of their overall health status,” says lead author Hassan Dashti, Ph.D., registered dietitian, nutrition scientist, and circadian biologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, US.

“Patients and clinicians can possibly use shifts in mealtime routines as an early warning sign to look into underlying physical and mental health issues.”

Eating patterns over time

The study authors highlight that how meal timing relates to overall health is less understood than changes in what and how much people eat over time.

“Up until now, we had limited insight into how the timing of meals evolves later in life and how this shift relates to overall health and longevity,” says Dashti.

A key finding was that older adults tend to eat breakfast and dinner at later times as they age, while narrowing the overall time window in which they eat each day.Dashti and his colleagues — including senior author Altug Didikoglu, Ph.D., of the Izmir Institute of Technology in Turkey — set out to determine if certain patterns might signal, or even influence, health outcomes later in life.

The team analyzed data, including blood samples, from 2,945 adults in the UK aged 42–94 years for over 20 years. The data included up to five repeated assessments of meal timing and health behaviors.

The key finding was that older adults tend to eat breakfast and dinner at later times as they age, while narrowing the overall time window in which they eat each day. The study’s late eating group had a ten-year survival rate of 86.7% compared to 89.5% in the early eating group.

Based on their findings, the study authors conclude that encouraging older adults to have consistent meal schedules could become part of broader strategies to promote healthy aging and longevity.

Verdict on breakfast

Dashti underscores that the study’s findings help fill a research gap on meal timing as a delayed breakfast is linked to health challenges and increased mortality risk.

“These results add new meaning to the saying that ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day,’ especially for older individuals.”

However, he notes that this comes with implications, considering that time-restricted eating and intermittent fasting are more popular today. For instance, one previous study supports that meal timing may boost cognitive health, while suggesting that skipping breakfast is “detrimental” to this benefit.

In another paper, intermittent fasting outperformed daily caloric restriction in terms of successful weight loss. Restricting the eating window may also impact various regions of the body, with potential benefits for cancer, heart disease, and hypertension.

With this in mind, the Massachusetts General Brigham researchers underscore that any health impacts of shifting meal schedules may differ significantly in aging populations from those in younger adults. Their results are published in Communications Medicine.