Meal frequency and timing in health and disease | Hacker News Reader

Meal frequency and timing in health and disease

pnas.org

3 pointsdtawfik14 comments

Super fascinating that meal timing can be so important. I had heard this before but shrugged it off as some kind of diet fad, but I can say from a personal level forcing myself to eat something every 60-90 minutes has really really helped my energy level. In general I have heard that you should not wait more than 4 hours between some kind of consumption.

The fact that it helped so much deeply disturbed me. When I was tired I would just have cup of coffee. Sometimes I still do, but simply having an “RX Bar” or some almonds can be just as powerful. That’s the level of effect we’re talking about here. In ancient history a topic that came up again and again was that many emotions originated in the stomach. I can see how they might have gotten this.

Also for dietary advice in general recommend the book “How Not To Die”. It’s a good book, but the extreme ethical standards of the author and his desire not to get involved in the fitness industry make it even better than usual. It’s good for general diet advice as well as also preventing the chronic diseases which are so hard to treat after a certain point.

How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250066115/

There's a lot of evidence that the body needs some meal restriction time to trigger autophagy, which has a lot of positive health outcomes.

  you should not wait more than 4 hours between some kind of consumption

That runs exactly contrary to current research. Did you read this paper? (This paper is from 2014, but it is consistent with other recent research I've seen in favoring intermittent fasting for obesity/NIDDM.)

Why do they break out the "2 Meals, No Breakfast" option in the chart and then never use it for any day in any of the 5 plans?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com