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.