Bellisle and colleagues [37] also bring up the valid point of “”reverse causality”" in which someone who gains weight might skip meal(s) with the hope that they will lose weight. If an individual chooses to do this during the course of a longitudinal study, where meal frequency data is collected, it could potentially alter data Nutlin-3a in vitro interpretation to make it artificially appear that decreased meal frequency actually caused the weight gain [37].

However, even taking reverse causality into account, certain studies listed in Table 1 still demonstrated a positive effect of increased meal frequency on body weight/composition even after accounting for possible under-reporters [16, 17] and dieters/restrained eaters [17]. Thus, the potential problem of under-reporting cannot be generalized to all studies that have shown a benefit of increased meal frequency. Equally important, several studies that initially found a significant inverse relationship between meal frequency and body weight/composition were no longer significant after the investigators adjusted for under-reporters [22, 23], dieters/restrained eaters [24], physical activity/peak oxygen consumption [29], or other various potential confounding

variables such as age, energy intake, physical activity, smoking status, etc. [21]. Nevertheless, Ruidavets et al. [17] still demonstrated a significant negative correlation between meal frequency and both buy Wortmannin BMI and waist-to-hip ratio even after adjusting for under-reporters, and dieters. Taking all of the observational studies listed in Table 1 and 2 into account, it is difficult to make definitive conclusions about the relationship between meal/eating frequency and body weight/composition. Ergoloid However, when accounting for the effects of under-reporting, exercise, and

other confounding variables, the preponderance of the research suggests that increased meal frequency does not play a significant role in decreasing body weight/weight composition. Experimental Studies The majority of experimental studies utilizing meal frequency interventions recruited overweight/obese populations [38–42]. When total daily calories were held constant (but hypocaloric) it was reported that the amount of body weight lost was not different even as meal frequency increased from a range of one meal per day up to nine meals per day [38–42]. Most recently in 2010, Cameron et al. [43] examined the effects of an eight week hypocaloric diet in both obese male and female participants. The subjects consumed either three meals per day (low meal frequency) or three meals plus three additional snacks (high meal frequency). Individuals in both the high and low meal frequency groups had the same caloric selleck kinase inhibitor restriction (~700 kcals/day). Both groups lost ~5% of their initial weight as well as similar decreases in lean mass, fat mass and overall BMI [43].