Studying irregular meal patterns fits in with the latest research focusing not only on what people eat but also when they eat, also called chrono-nutrition. Chrono-nutrition involves studying the impact of nutrition on metabolism via circadian patterns, including three aspects of time: (ir)regularity, frequency and clock time. The present paper aimed to narratively review research on irregular meal patterns and cardiometabolic consequences. Only few cross-sectional studies and prospective cohort studies were identified, and most of these suggested that eating meals irregularly is associated with a higher risk of the metabolic syndrome and cardiometabolic risk factors, including BMI and blood pressure. This was supported by two randomised controlled intervention studies showing that consuming meals regularly for 2 weeks v. an irregular meal pattern, led to beneficial impact on cardiometabolic risk factors as lower peak insulin, lower fasting total and LDL-cholesterol, both in lean and obese women. In conclusion, the limited evidence on meal regularity and cardiometabolic consequences supports the hypothesis that consuming meals irregularly is adversely associated with cardiometabolic risk. However, it also highlights the need for more large-scale studies, including detailed dietary assessment to further advance the understanding of the impact of chrono-nutrition on public health.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 362. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 08 September 2026.
All research outputs
#111,669
of 34,307,719 outputs
Outputs from Proceedings of the Nutrition Society
#10
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#1,838
of 344,897 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Proceedings of the Nutrition Society
#1
of 20 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,307,719 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,173 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 15.6. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 20 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its contemporaries.
