Does meal frequency matter for time-restricted eating? | Ruth Patterson
Get the full length version of this episode as a podcast.
This episode will make a great companion for a long drive.
The Omega-3 Supplementation Guide
A blueprint for choosing the right fish oil supplement — filled with specific recommendations, guidelines for interpreting testing data, and dosage protocols.
While a shortened eating window can reduce blood sugar levels – and thus breast cancer risk – the jury is still out regarding meal frequency. The prevailing thought is that if the eating window is short, the number of eating episodes may not matter. However, if the eating window is longer, the frequency of meals may become a factor. In this clip, Dr. Ruth Patterson discusses the effect that meal frequency has on breast cancer risk.
Rhonda: What about meal frequency? So is that...did that play a role? So if you're...I don't know how long between the fasting and fed state. Let's say, we're within the 12 hours in day we're within that 12 hour...
Ruth: Right.
Rhonda: ...you know, feeding time, allotted time. Does the amount of meals that we eat within that time matter?
Ruth: I think it's a little bit of a separate question. We tried to control for it, in case it did make a difference. Because it makes sense if you're eating, let's say 18 hours a day, you're probably going to have more eating episodes per day than if you're only eating for let's say 10 hours a day. So just reducing the number of hours that you eat may actually have some impact on how many eating occasions, which may also relate to disease risk. But we didn't see that to be a really important determinant of disease risk. So we're not really...that's sort of a little bit of a different question, we're not really quite sure. I think that the evidence is really out on meal frequency and disease risk.
Rhonda: Okay.
Ruth: And I, you know, if you want my...my gut feeling is that if you keep your eating interval fairly short, it may not matter very much. But when your interval is very long, so you're getting, you know, a meal impact and then a long time with no meal. And then, you know, throughout the day all those spikes might be more detrimental. But the data on that are really unclear at this time.
Rhonda: Yeah. I think you made some really good points and that is, you know, if you reduce the amount of time that you're eating, that naturally you would probably then reduce the frequency...
Ruth: You may reduce the frequency, yeah.
Rhonda: ...that you're eating. I just remember, I don't know if this is like one of those wives' tales where, you know, the smaller number of meals you eat was supposed to lower your blood...you wouldn't have as big of a blood glucose.
Ruth: Right.
Rhonda: You know, but then again, you're constantly doing it. So I don't know, you know?
Ruth: I think, you know, I know of at least one study in the field that's actually testing that. You know, testing five meals a day versus three. So I think they're starting to realize we don't really have a good answer to that and trials are underway to clarify that.
Rhonda: Okay.
A measurable substance in an organism that is indicative of some phenomenon such as disease, infection, or environmental exposure.
Restricting the timing of food intake to certain hours of the day (typically within an 8- to 12-hour time window that begins with the first food or non-water drink) without an overt attempt to reduce caloric intake. TRE is a type of intermittent fasting. It may trigger some beneficial health effects, such as reduced fat mass, increased lean muscle mass, reduced inflammation, improved heart function with age, increased mitochondrial volume, ketone body production, improved repair processes, and aerobic endurance improvements. Some of these effects still need to be replicated in human trials.
Member only extras:
Learn more about the advantages of a premium membership by clicking below.
Get email updates with the latest curated healthspan research
Support our work
Every other week premium members receive a special edition newsletter that summarizes all of the latest healthspan research.
Breast cancer News
- Risk of death from breast cancer was 49 percent lower among women with higher running activity.
- A fasting-mimicking diet improved effectiveness and reduced toxicity of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in breast cancer patients.
- A woman with late-stage breast cancer which had metastasized throughout her body is in complete remission after a new immunotherapy treatment.
- Asparagine bioavailability governs metastasis in a model of breast cancer
- A common type of chemotherapy cancer treatment may cause breast cancer to spread and trigger more aggressive tumors.
