Trial reportThe American journal of clinical nutrition2014
The causal role of breakfast in energy balance and health: a randomized controlled trial in lean adults.
Trial report in The American journal of clinical nutrition, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to 6 registered trials, which are not on this map. Cited by 104 papers, 12 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
The Acute Responses to Manipulating Dietary Carbohydrate Content and Type on All Major Aspects of Energy Balance
The Effect of Dietary Carbohydrate Manipulation on All Major Aspects of Energy Balance: A 12-week Randomised Controlled Trial
Acute Responses to Manipulating Dietary Carbohydrate Content on Free-living Physical Activity Energy Expenditure
Isolating and Exploiting the Mechanisms That Link Breakfast and Human Health - Intervention
Effect of the Perception of Breakfast Consumption on Appetite and Energy Intake in Healthy Males
Impact of Breakfast Consumption Timing on Postprandial Glycaemia and Insulinaemia in Adolescent Girls Who Habitually Skip Breakfast
Who cites it
104 citing papers in PubMed, 12 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 204 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Intermittent fasting strategies and their effects on body weight and other cardiometabolic risk factors: systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised clinical trials.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2025Pooled it
- Effects of time-restricted eating with exercise on body composition in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2025Pooled it
- Systematic review on the effects of exercise with and without breakfast consumption on cognitive performance in healthy adults.BMC psychology · 2025Pooled it
- Effects of different types of intermittent fasting on metabolic outcomes: an umbrella review and network meta-analysis.BMC medicine · 2024Pooled it
- Effect of skipping breakfast on cardiovascular risk factors: a grade-assessed systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials and prospective cohort studies.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2023Pooled it
- The effect of breakfast on childhood obesity: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in nutrition · 2023Pooled it
- The acute effect of fasted exercise on energy intake, energy expenditure, subjective hunger and gastrointestinal hormone release compared to fed exercise in healthy individuals: a systematic review and network meta-analysis.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2022Pooled it
- Breakfast Skipping, Body Composition, and Cardiometabolic Risk: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Trials.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2020Pooled it
- Effects of time-restricted feeding on body weight and metabolism. A systematic review and meta-analysis.Reviews in endocrine & metabolic disorders · 2020Pooled it
- Effect of breakfast on weight and energy intake: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2019Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Ketogenic diet but not free-sugar restriction alters glucose tolerance, lipid metabolism, peripheral tissue phenotype, and gut microbiome: RCT.Cell reports. Medicine · 2024Trial
- Restricting sugar or carbohydrate intake does not impact physical activity level or energy intake over 24 h despite changes in substrate use: a randomised crossover study in healthy men and women.European journal of nutrition · 2023Trial
- Feasibility of time-restricted eating and impacts on cardiometabolic health in 24-h shift workers: The Healthy Heroes randomized control trial.Cell metabolism · 2022Trial
- Timing of daily calorie loading affects appetite and hunger responses without changes in energy metabolism in healthy subjects with obesity.Cell metabolism · 2022Trial
- An Earlier First Meal Timing Associates with Weight Loss Effectiveness in A 12-Week Weight Loss Support Program.Nutrients · 2022Trial
- Trial
- An exploratory investigation of the impact of 'fast' and 'feed' days during intermittent energy restriction on free-living energy balance behaviours and subjective states in women with overweight/obesity.European journal of clinical nutrition · 2021Trial
- Effects of Ramadan Intermittent Fasting on Gut Hormones and Body Composition in Males with Obesity.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Trial
44 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundPopular beliefs that breakfast is the most important meal of the day are grounded in cross-sectional observations that link breakfast to health, the causal nature of which remains to be explored under real-life conditions.
objectiveThe aim was to conduct a randomized controlled trial examining causal links between breakfast habits and all components of energy balance in free-living humans.
designThe Bath Breakfast Project is a randomized controlled trial with repeated-measures at baseline and follow-up in a cohort in southwest England aged 21-60 y with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry-derived fat mass indexes ≤11 kg/m² in women (n = 21) and ≤7.5 kg/m² in men (n = 12). Components of energy balance (resting metabolic rate, physical activity thermogenesis, energy intake) and 24-h glycemic responses were measured under free-living conditions with random allocation to daily breakfast (≥700 kcal before 1100) or extended fasting (0 kcal until 1200) for 6 wk, with baseline and follow-up measures of health markers (eg, hematology/biopsies).
resultsContrary to popular belief, there was no metabolic adaptation to breakfast (eg, resting metabolic rate stable within 11 kcal/d), with limited subsequent suppression of appetite (energy intake remained 539 kcal/d greater than after fasting; 95% CI: 157, 920 kcal/d). Rather, physical activity thermogenesis was markedly higher with breakfast than with fasting (442 kcal/d; 95% CI: 34, 851 kcal/d). Body mass and adiposity did not differ between treatments at baseline or follow-up and neither did adipose tissue glucose uptake or systemic indexes of cardiovascular health. Continuously measured glycemia was more variable during the afternoon and evening with fasting than with breakfast by the final week of the intervention (CV: 3.9%; 95% CI: 0.1%, 7.8%).
conclusionsDaily breakfast is causally linked to higher physical activity thermogenesis in lean adults, with greater overall dietary energy intake but no change in resting metabolism. Cardiovascular health indexes were unaffected by either of the treatments, but breakfast maintained more stable afternoon and evening glycemia than did fasting.
Indexed as
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.