According to a recent study from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, fasting may make it harder to fight against infections and raise your chance of developing heart disease. The study, which concentrated on mouse models, is one of the first to demonstrate that skipping meals causes the brain to react in a way that harms immune cells. The findings, which centre on breakfast, were released in the Immunity journal and may help researchers better understand how long-term fasting may influence the body. “There is a growing awareness that fasting is healthy, and there is indeed abundant evidence for the benefits of fasting. Our study provides a word of caution as it suggests that there may also be a cost to fasting that carries a health risk,” said lead author Filip Swirski, PhD, Director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at Icahn Mount Sinai, adding, “This is a mechanistic study delving into some of the fundamental biology relevant to fasting. The study shows that there is a conversation between the nervous and immune systems.” Researchers aimed to better understand how fasting — from a relatively short fast of only a few hours to a more severe fast of 24 hours — affects the immune system. They analyzed two groups of mice. One group ate breakfast right after waking up (breakfast is their largest meal of the day), and the other group had no breakfast.