Question: Is there an optimum number of meals or insulin spikes per day for optimizing thyroid function?

Assuming that you're controlling for the level of insulin sensitivity on the thyroid gland -- I guess if I had to throw out a wild guess, the free fatty acid concentration is probably mostly relevant when the free fatty acid levels are really high. It's probably not the case that you want to just like -- it's probably -- I don't know. If you go a long time without eating food or you eat like very high fat, very low carb acutely, in that context it's probably when the free fatty acid levels are getting the highest. If you're spreading your meals out more, you're probably never going to have as big of a peak. Or you're spreading your carbohydrate out more, you might have slightly elevated free fatty acids that never actually cross the threshold for that to matter. But I still think the dominant things for insulin on the thyroid is mostly just going to be an average cumulative thing. I don't think that the number of spikes is going to drive that.

This Q&A can also be found as part of a much longer episode, here: https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/podcast/2019/10/19/ask-us-anything-hormones-dr-carrie-jones-may-10-2019

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====== DISCLAIMER: I have a PhD in Nutritional Sciences and my expertise is in performing and evaluating nutritional research. I am not a medical doctor and nothing herein is medical advice. PLEASE NOTE: As a result of the COVID-19 crisis and the time I am committing to staying on top of relevant research, as well as the high volume of questions I receive, it may take me extra time to respond to questions here. For an up-to-date list of where I respond to questions most quickly, please see the contact page on chrismasterjohnphd.com.

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Chris Masterjohn, PhD, is the Founder and Scientific Director of the mitochondria test Mitome.