Japanese Gastroenterologists Urge that Eating bread for breakfast is harmful to health

Bread is a breakfast choice for many people because it’s delicious and convenient. Dr. Fukushima Masatsugu, a Japanese gastroenterologist, reminds everyone that bread is difficult to digest. It will also spike blood sugar after waking up in the morning, throwing us into high carbohydrate needs, and disrupting the balance of the autonomic nervous system.

Taipei, TAIWAN (Merxwire) – Crispy and delicious bread is a breakfast choice for many people. It is delicious and convenient. For busy modern people, it’s a good choice to take into account time. Dr. Fukushima Masatsugu, a Japanese gastroenterologist, especially reminds everyone that bread is actually not easy to digest, and it will also make the blood sugar soar when we get up in the morning, make us fall into the demand of high carbohydrates, and also destroy the balance of the autonomic nervous system. So it’s time to break the habit of eating bread for breakfast.

Dr. Fukushima is mainly known in Japan for surgery on gastrointestinal, hepatobiliary, and pancreatic diseases. As a gastroenterology and hepatobiliary specialist, he liked to eat carbohydrates such as bread before. Therefore, he once suffered from obesity, hyperlipidemia, stomach pain, migraine, and metabolic syndrome and even needed medication to control it. Knee pain problems started after the age of 40, which triggered him to quit carbs. This change allowed him to lose 10 kg in 2 months and his gastrointestinal symptoms improved. His triglycerides dropped from a cut-off value of 160 mg/dl to normal. So he started to promote the campaign “don’t eat bread in the morning” in Japan.

5 Reasons Why Eating Bread for Breakfast is Harmful to Your Health

Based on the accumulated clinical experience and data of more than 100,000 patients, the doctor put forward five reasons why eating bread for breakfast may be harmful to health after statistics and analysis:

1. Gluten and food additives in bread can affect digestion and cause digestive problems. Gluten is the protein in flour that makes dough sticky and makes baked bread softer. But it may not be fully digested, and the sticky substance can tangle with the villi in the small intestine, affecting digestion and causing symptoms such as allergies, abdominal pain, or diarrhea. Moreover, in the process of baking bread, the protein of wheat will combine with sugar to form AGEs, the coking part of the surface, which is easy to cause complications related to diabetes and make organs prone to inflammation and cardiovascular disease.
2. After accumulating 30,000 colonoscopies, 60,000 gastrointestinal endoscopies, and 2,000 gastrointestinal surgeries, Dr. Fukushima checked the records and found that carbohydrates that stay in the intestine for a long time are not easy to digest. food. The bread stays in the stomach for up to 6 hours and the rice for 10 hours. On the contrary, there is hardly any leftover meat that we consider to be indigestible. In addition, some pieces of bread have high sodium content. Take the toast that everyone eats as an example, each 100g contains about 500 to 600mg of sodium, which is higher than the same amount of potato chips. Excessive sodium makes us more prone to edema, and constipation. It also stimulates the gastrointestinal mucosa that has been repaired at night, causing gastrointestinal inflammation.
3. The body naturally secretes cortisol and adrenaline in the morning, so the absorption rate of sugar is higher than at other times. If you eat a lot of carbohydrates right after you wake up, your blood sugar will rise sharply. Wheat, the raw material of bread, has an average sugar content of 42.2 grams per 100 grams. After eating bread, blood sugar will first rise sharply and then drop rapidly 1 to 2 hours after breakfast. Severe fluctuations can easily lead to cardiovascular diseases such as arteriosclerosis, stroke, and myocardial infarction.
4. When you eat bread for breakfast, the blood sugar rises rapidly, and the body starts to secrete insulin to lower blood sugar. Insulin creates a craving for more carbohydrates in the brain, thus entering a vicious cycle of craving high carbohydrate needs. Often two hours after eating bread for breakfast, you will feel hungry again and start eating more carbohydrates, which puts a lot of pressure on the digestive system.
5. The blood and organs in the human body are controlled by the autonomic nervous system, which can be divided into sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves. Daytime activity is dominated by the sympathetic nerves, which aid in blood circulation but inhibit digestion. At night, it is dominated by the parasympathetic nerves, which allow the body to rest and relax while promoting digestion. If you eat bread for breakfast, consuming too much sugar will affect the handover work of the two systems, causing autonomic nervous system disorders, disrupting the balance of the biological clock, and affecting the daily work and rest state.

Doctors suggest that if you want to become healthy, you can start with a sugar control life. Therefore, it is recommended that everyone get rid of the habit of eating bread for breakfast, especially those who have gastrointestinal symptoms and want to lose weight. After stopping bread for breakfast, many patients reported several positive changes in their physical condition, including better digestion, a reduction in symptoms of abdominal pain and diarrhea, and improvements in gastroesophageal reflux, migraines, and emotional anxiety.

If bread is not suitable for breakfast, what are other better options? Doctors and nutritionists suggest that whole grains should be based on coarse starches, with high-quality proteins such as milk, eggs, and unsweetened soy milk. Eat some nuts to supplement the better oil, and add the dietary fiber of vegetables and fruits to control blood sugar. Getting rid of refined starches for breakfast and focusing on prototype foods rich in nutritional value can maintain blood sugar and gastrointestinal health, and can also improve the annoying symptoms accumulated daily, and become healthy and beautiful.