A team of researchers from the American Mount Sinai Medical Center revealed that skipping breakfast causes a reaction in the brain that results in decreased immune system function.
The study was published in the journal “Immunity”, where scientists conducted an experiment on two groups of mice, one group ate breakfast while the second group did not eat the meal.
The researchers took blood samples from both groups after four hours and after eight hours.
After the experiment, the researchers noticed a clear difference in the samples taken, especially the difference in the number of monocytes, confirming that after four hours their number decreased by 90% in the blood of the mice that had not eaten lunch.
Immune cells are a type of white blood cell that is produced in the bone marrow and play many important roles in the body, from fighting infection to heart disease and cancer.
Scientists found that in starving mice, the production of new cells decreased in the bone marrow at the same time that monocytes began to age dramatically, although they lived longer.
The altered monocytes caused inflammation, which made the body less resistant to infection.
Scientists have identified specific areas of the brain that control the response of monocytes during periods of fasting, so many studies in recent years have shown the benefits of fasting for weight loss, controlling blood sugar levels, and other diseases.