Habit of Eating Breakfast Is Associated with a Lower Risk of Hypertension

BACKGROUND The association between skipping breakfast and cardio-metabolic syndrome is well known. However, there are very few Korean studies about the habit of eating breakfast and hypertension. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between the habit of eating breakfast and hypertension in a healthy Korean population. METHODS Participants in the 2014 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (KNHANES) were enrolled for this study. Medical history, including hypertension, was measured using a 24-hour recall method. The habit of eating breakfast was estimated from self-reported questionnaires and was classified into two groups: the eating breakfast group, defined as those who ate breakfast more than 5 times per week, and the not eating breakfast group, defined as those who did not eat any breakfast for a week. RESULTS The crude odds ratio of skipping breakfast for the prevalence of hypertension was 0.366. However, after adjusting for all considerable confounding factors (age, sex, regular exercise, current smoking, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, body mass index, waist circumference, and red blood cell counts), not eating breakfast was associated with a higher risk of HTN (OR = 1.065; 95% CI = 1.057-1.073; p-value < 0.001). CONCLUSION The habit of eating breakfast was associated with a lower risk of hypertension among healthy Korean adults.