This is Scientific Americans 60 Second Science.

I'm Steve Mursky.

Got a minute?

People with type 2 diabetes have to keep a close watch

on their blood glucose levels. Now a small study finds that having

the day's biggest meal at breakfast and smallest meal at dinner offers much

better glucose control than having a small breakfast and big dinner, even when the total intake during the day was exactly the same 1,500 calories.

The study by researchers from Israel's Tel Aviv University, Sweden's Lund University, and other institutions is in the journal Diabetologia.

18 adult volunteers, 10 women and 8 men, all with type 2 diabetes, were assigned by a coin flip to either the big breakfast diet or the

big dinner one. In the big dinner diet, participants spent a week having about a 200 calorie

breakfast, a 600 calorie lunch, and a 700 calorie dinner.

The big breakfast diet was the reverse with the 700 calorie meal in the morning, the 600 calorie

lunch, and a light 200 calorie dinner.

After two weeks the group switched meal plans so that the big dinner folks became the big breakfast folks and vice versa.

And overall various measures of blood glucose and insulin levels

were significantly better in those who had their big meal in the morning.

The next steps are longer studies with more participants,

but like a healthy breakfast, this research seems like a good start.

Thanks for the minute. For Scientific Americans 60 Second Science, I'm Steve Mursky.