Eating your first meal later in the day may be associated with a higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease, according to a new study involving 31,044 adults aged 40 and older.

The research, published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, examined how the timing of people's first and last meals was associated with mortality. Over a median follow-up of 8.6 years, 7,129 deaths were recorded among 31,044 participants.

The findings do not mean that eating breakfast late directly causes heart attacks, strokes, or other fatal cardiovascular events. Instead, they point to a potential association between meal timing and long-term health.

What Time Should You Eat Breakfast?

Researchers used people who had their first meal between 7am and 8am as the reference group. Compared with them, participants who ate their first meal between 8am and 10am had a 10% higher risk of death from any cause.

The association increased among those eating their first meal between 10am and noon, who had a 19% higher risk. For people whose first meal was after noon, the risk was 29% higher.

The relationship was even more pronounced when researchers looked specifically at cardiovascular deaths. Having the first meal after noon was associated with a 46% higher risk of cardiovascular mortality compared with eating between 7am and 8am.

For adults aged 50, the researchers estimated that those whose first meal was after noon had an average life expectancy around 2.46 years shorter than those eating their first meal between 7am and 8am.

Why Might Meal Timing Matter?

The researchers suggested that meal timing could be connected to the body's circadian rhythms. Eating patterns that are out of sync with these rhythms may potentially affect metabolic health, although the study cannot establish exactly why later first meals were associated with higher mortality.

Importantly, other lifestyle factors may also help explain the findings. People who regularly eat very late may have different sleep schedules, levels of physical activity, dietary patterns, or underlying health conditions from those who eat earlier.

The researchers therefore described meal timing as a potentially modifiable behavioural factor rather than establishing it as an independent cause of early death.

Does Skipping Breakfast Cause Heart Disease?

Not necessarily. The study examined when people had their first meal, rather than proving that skipping breakfast itself causes cardiovascular disease. This distinction is important because observational studies can identify associations but cannot establish cause and effect.

The researchers used dietary recall data from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, meaning meal timing was based on reported eating patterns rather than a controlled experiment.

Other research has also produced more nuanced findings. A 2026 prospective study of 4,070 adults aged 65 and older found no clear overall association between breakfast timing and heart attack or coronary artery disease risk, although some associations varied according to participants' cardiometabolic characteristics and follow-up period.

What Should You Do?

The findings are not a reason to panic about occasionally having a late breakfast. Instead, they add to growing research suggesting that when people eat may matter alongside what they eat.

For overall cardiovascular health, established factors such as maintaining a balanced diet, exercising regularly, avoiding smoking, managing blood pressure and cholesterol, and maintaining a healthy weight remain important.

If late meals are part of a routine, paying attention to the broader pattern may be more useful than focusing on a single breakfast time. Anyone with existing cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or other health concerns should discuss significant dietary changes with a healthcare professional.

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