ArticleThe American journal of clinical nutrition2019
Genome-wide association study of breakfast skipping links clock regulation with food timing.
Article in The American journal of clinical nutrition, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 37 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
37 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 60 citations in OpenAlex.
- Systematic review of Mendelian randomization studies on risk of cancer.BMC medicine · 2022Pooled it
- Breakfast Skipping, Body Composition, and Cardiometabolic Risk: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Trials.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2020Pooled it
- The Effect of Exogenous Melatonin on Eating Habits of Female Night Workers with Excessive Weight.Nutrients · 2022Trial
- Emerging genetics of sleep and circadian disorders.Current opinion in pediatrics · 2026Article
- Association between clock genes polygenic risk score for depression and obesity in a population with high burden of obesity.Nutrition & metabolism · 2025Article
- Assessment and characterization of circadian and temporal eating patterns for precision nutrition.European heart journal · 2025Article
- Breakfast Skipping Increases the Risk of Coronary Heart Disease and Myocardial Infarction: Evidence From the Mendelian Randomization Study.Food science & nutrition · 2025Article
- Effects of skipping breakfast, lunch or dinner on subsequent postprandial blood glucose levels among healthy young adults.Nutrition & metabolism · 2025Article
- Association of 24-h Energy Intake Behavior With Depressive Symptoms: Findings From the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.Depression and anxiety · 2025Article
- A perspective on intermittent fasting and cardiovascular risk in the era of obesity pharmacotherapy.Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Article
- Breakfast skipping is linked to a higher risk of major depressive disorder and the role of gut microbes: a mendelian randomization study.Nutrition journal · 2024Article
- Sex-specific chrono-nutritional patterns and association with body weight in a general population in Spain (GCAT study).The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2024Article
- Blood metabolites mediate effects of breakfast skipping on heart failure via Mendelian randomization analysis.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- A genomics perspective of personalized prevention and management of obesity.Human genomics · 2024Review
- Genetic predisposition to type 2 diabetes mellitus and aortic dissection: a Mendelian randomisation study.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2024Article
- Article
- Timing Matters: The Interplay between Early Mealtime, Circadian Rhythms, Gene Expression, Circadian Hormones, and Metabolism-A Narrative Review.Clocks & sleep · 2023Review
- Addressing the ethical and societal challenges posed by genome-wide association studies of behavioral and brain-related traits.Nature neuroscience · 2023Review
- The role of hepatokines in NAFLD.Cell metabolism · 2023Review
- Breakfast Size and Prevalence of Metabolic Syndrome in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) Spanish Cohort.Nutrients · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
27 authors at 15 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundLittle is known about the contribution of genetic variation to food timing, and breakfast has been determined to exhibit the most heritable meal timing. As breakfast timing and skipping are not routinely measured in large cohort studies, alternative approaches include analyses of correlated traits.
objectivesThe aim of this study was to elucidate breakfast skipping genetic variants through a proxy-phenotype genome-wide association study (GWAS) for breakfast cereal skipping, a commonly assessed correlated trait.
methodsWe leveraged the statistical power of the UK Biobank (n = 193,860) to identify genetic variants related to breakfast cereal skipping as a proxy-phenotype for breakfast skipping and applied several in silico approaches to investigate mechanistic functions and links to traits/diseases. Next, we attempted validation of our approach in smaller breakfast skipping GWAS from the TwinUK (n = 2,006) and the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) consortium (n = 11,963).
resultsIn the UK Biobank, we identified 6 independent GWAS variants, including those implicated for caffeine (ARID3B/CYP1A1), carbohydrate metabolism (FGF21), schizophrenia (ZNF804A), and encoding enzymes important for N6-methyladenosine RNA transmethylation (METTL4, YWHAB, and YTHDF3), which regulates the pace of the circadian clock. Expression of identified genes was enriched in the cerebellum. Genome-wide correlation analyses indicated positive correlations with anthropometric traits. Through Mendelian randomization (MR), we observed causal links between genetically determined breakfast skipping and higher body mass index, more depressive symptoms, and smoking. In bidirectional MR, we demonstrated a causal link between being an evening person and skipping breakfast, but not vice versa. We observed association of our signals in an independent breakfast skipping GWAS in another British cohort (P = 0.032), TwinUK, but not in a meta-analysis of non-British cohorts from the CHARGE consortium (P = 0.095).
conclusionsOur proxy-phenotype GWAS identified 6 genetic variants for breakfast skipping, linking clock regulation with food timing and suggesting a possible beneficial role of regular breakfast intake as part of a healthy lifestyle.
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