Nutritionists have preached for years that breakfast gets the day off to a good start and that skipping it is a bad idea. Now research from Japan says that eating breakfast every day could ward off stroke.

Researchers from Osaka University followed 82,000 healthy men and women aged 45 and older for up to 15 years. The volunteers were classified as having breakfast up to two times a week, three to four times a week, five to six, or seven times a week.

Results showed that eating breakfast decreased the risk of stroke, and the more days a week the participants had breakfast, the lower their risk of stroke. Those who ate breakfast the least had a 20 percent higher risk of stroke, especially a cerebral hemorrhage, when compared to those who ate breakfast the most.

A cerebral hemorrhage is when a blood vessel bursts inside the brain, causing bleeding into brain tissue.

Although the link between eating breakfast and suffering a stroke was clear, the study showed no significant link between eating breakfast and coronary heart disease.

Researchers theorize that skipping breakfast could lead to high blood pressure and high cholesterol — both risk factors for stroke.

The study was published in the journal Stroke.