The Skinny on the Meal Frequency Studies – part 2

* This post is provided by our guest expert Ori Hofmekler

I believe that Dr. Mattson knows the limitations of these studies and how misleading the conclusions may seem to be. In an article in the medical journal Lancet 2005, Dr. Mattson indicated that humans indeed are inherently programmed (all through the evolutionary process) to better survive on one main meal per day. With references to The Warrior Diet, Dr. Mattson presented the adverse consequences of overfeeding via frequent feeding. Other scientists worldwide have also been realizing that the human body is not programmed for frequent feeding.

The facts speak for themselves – in spite of dieting more than ever, people today are getting fatter and sicker than ever. Obesity has reached an epidemic proportion of 30%, diabetes 12%, pre-diabetes 25%, blood sugar disorders, roughly 50%, Syndrome X 20%, male impotence about 15%, estrogen disorders are virtually 100%, and prostate disorders will eventually occur to virtually 100% of males. And all these maladies occur when the vast majority of people have been eating 3 – 4 meals per day. How much more do we need to suffer before realizing that something is very wrong with our diet routines and particularly with the frequency upon which we have been shoving food into our bodies?

Previous studies on intermittent fasting in lab animals revealed the amazing benefits of lower meal frequency on increasing life span, improving blood glucose, enhancing neuro protective capacity and improving body composition. More studies need to be done on human feeding but with more care towards real life conditions – how, for instance, the reduction of meal frequency affects calorie intake and food choices – naturally (rather than artificially by force feeding the subjects).

Finally, what you eat, when you eat and how much you eat are all important factors that are inseparably bound together to form your diet. Isolating one element over the others is a futile experiment that will always fail to indicate how things really work in real life. Things simply don’t work in isolation. For instance, lowering calorie intake to merely 1000 calories per day will theoretically lead to weight loss and improve insulin sensitivity – but if the 1000 calories will come from pure sugar, the results will most likely be the opposite – weight gain and insulin resistance. Here is another example: combine some of the healthiest foods together – nuts, raisins, and whole grains – and you may gain undesirable weight just because the food combination was wrong and nuts do not combine well with raisins or grains. In conclusion, you can experience undesirable weight gain in spite of reducing calorie intake, or in spite of eating healthy foods – if you ignore other factors that influence your diet.

Photo by Sashertootie