Association between Skipping Breakfast and Morning Gastric Motility Monitored by Electrogastrography

Electrogastrography (EGG) is a noninvasive technique for measurement of gastric motility by recording gastric myoelectrical activity through cutaneous electrodes placed on the abdomen. We performed a one-week skipping breakfast test and a consecutive one-week refeeding test to examine the relationship between consecutive skipping of breakfast and morning gastric motility in 11 women (age 21.5±0.2 yr) who habitually ate breakfast almost every day. On the test days, we measured the subjects’ body composition, self-reported hunger and appetite scores (by using visual analog scales), EGG (to determine the Normal power, % Normal power, and dominant frequency [DF] of gastric myoelectrical activity with the band set at around 3 cycles per min), and electrocardiogram (to determine cardiac autonomic nervous system activity) at about 9 a.m. after an overnight fast. A one-week period of skipping breakfast diminished % Normal power and the DF, but not to a significant degree. After the refeeding period, a further decrease in the DF was observed (p=0.077 versus baseline). Moreover, hunger (r=0.55, p=0.077) and appetite scores (r=0.60, p=0.051) were weakly but positively correlated with % Normal power. Our results suggest that a one-week period of skipping breakfast tends to decrease gastric motility in young women who normally have a habit of eating breakfast, and that the intensity of morning gastric motility may be involved in hunger sensation or appetite.