Later Breakfast Linked to Higher Mortality Risk in Older Adults

An international team of researchers has conducted a new longitudinal study that associates eating breakfast later in the day with a higher likelihood of early death in older adults. The findings raise further questions about the connection between meal timing and ill health.

What we eat is not the only factor influencing physical health and wellbeing: when meals are eaten is also known to affect how the body functions. At the same time, a person's health can influence when they feel like eating.

Study data and changing meal times

The researchers gathered data from 2,945 adults in Newcastle and Manchester, UK, between 1983 and 2017. Participants were between 42 and 94 years old when they enrolled, and supplied information about their health, lifestyle and eating patterns through optional questionnaires.

The analysis showed that, as volunteers grew older, they generally ate both breakfast and dinner later. Their daily eating period also became more restricted. Later meal times were associated with worse physical and mental health.

Later breakfast and mortality risk in older adults

For all-cause mortality - the probability of dying from any cause - the team identified a significant association between having breakfast later and an increased mortality risk. For every hour breakfast was delayed, the likelihood of death during the study period rose by 8–11 per cent.

"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 nutrition scientist Hassan Dashti, from Harvard Medical School.

The researchers do not argue that a later breakfast directly causes people to die younger, nor that moving breakfast a few hours earlier would ensure several additional years of life.

Instead, they suggest the association probably works in the opposite direction. With advancing age, health problems can accumulate and become more severe. This may make earlier death more likely while also contributing to later breakfast times.

Poor health may lead to insufficient sleep, for example, and difficulty sleeping can make it harder to get up. Declining physical health can also make everyday activities, including preparing breakfast, take longer.

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

"Our findings help fill that gap by showing that later meal timing, especially delayed breakfast, is tied to both health challenges and increased mortality risk in older adults."

Meal routines as a possible health marker

The results could help identify older people whose health places them at greater risk. They may also improve understanding of how shifts in eating habits can affect younger and older people in different ways.

The global population is ageing, meaning older people account for a growing share of the world's total population. That makes it increasingly important to recognise and interpret patterns such as these.

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

"Also, encouraging older adults in having consistent meal schedules could become part of broader strategies to promoting healthy aging and longevity."

The research was published in Communications Medicine.