Plenty of research has found that eating breakfast is important for weight maintenance, metabolism and overall good health. Now, the evidence gets even stronger: a small new randomized controlled trial finds that regularly eating a substantial morning meal directly affects how fat cells function in the body by changing the activity of genes involved in fat metabolism and insulin resistance. The findings suggest that eating breakfast every morning may help lower people’s risk for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, the study authors say-and that even if a morning meal increases a person’s total calorie consumption, those calories maybe offset by other energy-burning benefits.

　　大量研究发现：吃早饭对保持体重、促进新陈代谢和维持整体健康十分重要。现在，证据进一步表明：一项新的小型随机对照试验发现，定期吃丰盛的早餐通过改变与脂肪新陈代谢和胰岛素抵抗性相关的基因活动，直接影响着体内脂肪细胞的运作。研究结果表明，每天都吃早饭或能帮助降低人们患2型糖尿病、心血管疾病的风险，研究作者说道，并且，即使吃早饭会增加一个人的总体卡路里摄入量，但这些卡路里也能被其它燃烧能量的益处所抵消。

　　In the study, published in the Journal of Physiology, researchers asked 49 people ages 21 to 60 to either eat breakfast or fast until mid-day, every day for six weeks. Those in the breakfast group were asked to eat at least 700 calories by 11 a.m., and at least half of those calories within two hours of waking. They could choose the foods they wanted, but most people optedfor typical breakfast foods like cereals, toast and juice.

　　这篇研究发表在《生理学杂志》上，研究人员要求49名21岁至61岁的人要么吃早饭，要么就一直饿到中午，持续六周。研究人员要求那些吃早饭的人在早上11点之前摄入至少700卡路里，并且至少一半的热量是在醒来后的2小时内摄入的。他们可以选择自己想吃的食物，但大多数人选择了经典早餐，比如燕麦、吐司和橙汁。

　　Before and after the study, the researchers measured everyone’s metabolism, body composition and cardiovascular and metabolic health. They also took biopsies of their fat cells to measure the activity of 44 different genes and proteins related to metabolism and other physiological processes, as well as the cells’ ability to take up sugar, which is the body’s response to changing insulin levels.

　　研究前后，研究人员测量了每个人的新陈代谢、身体组成，以及心血管和新陈代谢健康。他们还对受试者的脂肪细胞进行了活组织检查，测量了与新陈代谢以及其它生理过程相关的44种不同基因和蛋白质的活动，以及细胞摄取糖分的能力，这也是人体对改变胰岛素水平的反应。

　　They found that in people who had normal weights, eating breakfast decreased the activity of genes involved in fat burning. In other words, there was some evidence that skipping breakfast actually increased fat burning, says lead author Javier Gonzalez, associate professor in nutrition and metabolism at the University of Bath in the UK, in an email. But total energy balance-the most important aspect for weight loss or weight maintenance-did not drastically differ between groups. However, that’s not what they found in people with obesity. The more body fat a person had, the less their fat cells responded to insulin.

　　他们发现，在体重正常的人群中，吃早饭降低了与脂肪燃烧有关的基因的活性。换言之，有些迹象表明：不吃早饭确实会加快脂肪燃烧，首席研究作者哈维尔.冈萨雷斯在一封电子邮件中写道，他是英国巴斯大学营养与代谢学副教授。但整体的能量平衡——减肥或维持体重的最重要因素——在两组之间却没有出现很大的不同。然而，对于肥胖人员而言，结果却不是如此。一个人身体脂肪越多，他们的脂肪细胞对胰岛素的反应次数就越少。