I would like to know if eating breakfast every morning is more likely
to raise your weight because of the extra calories or lose weight
because it gets the metabolism going sooner.

Every diet expert says that you must eat breakfast (I assume that
means before 10:00 a.m.) to help you lose weight.  But this flies in
the face of the USDA recommendations about calories and weight loss. 
Therefore, I want clinical proof that eating breakfast works or does
not work.

A good answer will either: 
1) Give me the results of a clinical trial that is statistically valid
showing the effects of eating breakfast on weight gain or loss; or
2) Prove to me that there have never been any statistically valid
clinical trials on the subject. If that is the case, I would like
information on the least expensive way to perform such a clinical
trial using twins who eat the exact same food and exercise except that
one of them will have breakfast.

---

Request for Question Clarification by kriswrite-ga on 09 Oct 2004 13:53 PDT

Do you require a copy of the actual study? Or will articles
summarizing the studies be suitable?

Kriswrite

---

Clarification of Question by holstein13-ga on 10 Oct 2004 05:42 PDT

Articles Summarizing the studies will be acceptable.

Hi Holstein13,

I've found two clinical trials that indicate that breakfast may be a
factor in weight loss and maintenance.  I'm including the citations
and abstracts for the two studies here - your best bet for getting the
actual papers is to contact your local public or academic library to
see if they are available there or if you can get them via
interlibrary loan.

1: Obesity Research. 2002 Feb;10(2):78-82. 
Long-term weight loss and breakfast in subjects in the National Weight Control
Registry.
Wyatt HR, Grunwald GK, Mosca CL, Klem ML, Wing RR, Hill JO.
University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, Colorado 80262, USA.
holly.wyatt@uchsc.edu
OBJECTIVE: To examine breakfast consumption in subjects maintaining a weight
loss in the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR). RESEARCH METHODS AND
PROCEDURES: A cross-sectional study in which 2959 subjects in the NWCR completed
demographic and weight history questionnaires as well as questions about their
current breakfast consumption. All subjects had maintained a weight loss of at
least 13.6 kg (30 lb) for at least 1 year; on average these subjects had lost 32
kg and kept it off for 6 years. RESULTS: A large proportion of NWCR subjects
(2313 or 78%) reported regularly eating breakfast every day of the week. Only
114 subjects (4%) reported never eating breakfast. There was no difference in
reported energy intake between breakfast eaters and non-eaters, but breakfast
eaters reported slightly more physical activity than non-breakfast eaters (p =
0.05). DISCUSSION: Eating breakfast is a characteristic common to successful
weight loss maintainers and may be a factor in their success.
PMID: 11836452 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]



2: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 1992 Mar;55(3):645-51. 
The role of breakfast in the treatment of obesity: a randomized clinical trial.
Schlundt DG, Hill JO, Sbrocco T, Pope-Cordle J, Sharp T.
Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37240.
Fifty-two moderately obese adult women were stratified according to their
baseline breakfast-eating habits and randomly assigned a weight-loss program.
The no-breakfast group ate two meals per day and the breakfast group ate three
meals per day. The energy content of the two weight-loss programs was identical.
After the 12-wk treatment, baseline breakfast eaters lost 8.9 kg in the
no-breakfast treatment and 6.2 kg in the breakfast treatment. Baseline breakfast
skippers lost 7.7 kg in the breakfast treatment and 6.0 kg in the no-breakfast
treatment. This treatment-by-strata-by-time interaction effect (P less than
0.06) suggests that those who had to make the most substantial changes in eating
habits to comply with the program achieved better results. Analyses of
behavioral data suggested that eating breakfast helped reduce dietary fat and
minimize impulsive snacking and therefore may be an important part of a
weight-reduction program.
Publication Types:
    Clinical Trial
    Randomized Controlled Trial
PMID: 1550038 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]


Please let me know if these match your needs.  I am, of course, happy
to work with you further!  I found these articles by doing a search of
the PubMed MEDLINE database (wwww.pubmed.gov) as follows:
"breakfast[All Fields] AND ("weight loss"[MeSH Terms] OR weight
loss[Text Word])".

Librariankt

RESEARCHERS: Please note that an answer was posted, but the customer
later clarified they were looking for studies where the effect of
breakfast was the only variable tested.

Kriswrite