Eat breakfast

8 ways to prevent diabetes

Millions of Canadians are living with diabetes and prediabetes. There are steps and lifestyle changes you can take to ward off the disease

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1. Eat breakfast

In one study, people who ate breakfast were 35 to 50 per cent less likely to be overweight or have insulin resistance than breakfast skippers. What's going on? An overnight fast puts your body into 'starvation mode'. If you don't eat breakfast, your liver churns out stored glucose to keep your blood sugar levels up. At the same time, skipping breakfast flips biochemical switches that reduce the body's response to insulin. And it raises levels of an appetite-stimulating hormone called ghrelin so you want to eat more all day long. Do this often enough, and you gain weight, say scientists from Children's Hospital Boston in the US.

Avoid eating bagels (too many carbohydrates) or a shop-bought muffin (too many kilojoules and hydrogenated oils) for breakfast. Instead, pour yourself a bowl of muesli or high-fibre cereal with skim milk and add some berries on top for good measure. One Canadian study from the University of Toronto looked at people with prediabetes and found that high-fibre cereals made their cells 'listen' better to insulin than lower-fibre ones. Yogurt with fresh berries is also a good breakfast choice.