There are dietary recommendations for how many calories one should eat daily and what foods are the best choices to provide those calories, but not for how often one should eat in a day. Observational studies have suggested higher eating frequency (six small meals a day, for example, instead of three larger ones) may have health benefits, including lower total and LDL-cholesterol levels, fasting glucose levels, and blood pressure. However, participants in one small, randomized trial reported they felt hungrier when they ate more frequent meals. A randomized controlled trial set out to see how different eating frequencies impacted appetite and systemic inflammation.
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