While everyone knows eating right is important to staying healthy, figuring out which diet to focus on can be difficult with so many options. From Mediterranean to DASH and Atkins to paleo, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution that works for everyone. But if you’re hoping to lower your risk of heart disease, you might want to take note of a relatively unknown and simple eating plan: The portfolio diet.
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The portfolio diet is entirely plant-based.
If you’ve ever flirted with the idea of cutting meat out of your diet for health reasons, there’s a chance you could have luck with this regimen that’s catching some newfound steam.
“The portfolio diet was proposed about 20 years ago, and it has a lot in common with other heart-healthy diets that that you heard of, such as a Mediterranean diet, the DASH diet, and a whole food, plant-based diet,” Sarah Hull, MD, an associate professor of medicine in cardiology at Yale School of Medicine, told HuffPost in a recent interview.
The system derives its name from its basis on a “portfolio” of animal-free food options. This includes plant-based proteins in items like legumes and soy; fiber in foods like barley, oats, citrus fruit, berries, and apples; phytosterols that help to naturally lower cholesterol absorption; nuts and seeds; and foods high in healthy monosaturated fats like avocados and plant oils, according to the American Heart Association (AHA). Unlike other popular regimens like the Mediterranean diet, this makes the portfolio diet entirely vegan.
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It can help greatly reduce "bad" cholesterol.
New research is already showing how effective the diet can be. In a study published last year in the AHA’s journal Circulation, a team of scientists analyzed food journal data from 166,270 women and 43,970 men without cardiovascular disease who answered food questionnaires every four years after enrolling in long-term health studies from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s.
The team then used the information to score how regularly participants consumed the tenant items from the portfolio diet. Ultimately, they found that those who received the highest scores were 14 percent less likely to suffer a heart attack or stroke.
"Through this research, we found that the portfolio diet score was consistently associated with a lower risk of both heart disease and stroke, highlighting an opportunity for people to lower their heart disease risk through consuming more of these foods recommended in the diet," the study's lead author, Andrea Glenn, PhD, a registered dietitian and assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at New York University, told the AHA last year.
Part of this could be because of how much the diet helps reduce cholesterol. One 2003 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that participants on the diet saw their LDL—or “bad” cholesterol—drop by as much as 28 percent after four weeks of following the diet.
“And then [researchers] did a subsequent study where they actually compared following this diet with lovastatin, which is a pharmaceutical agent to lower cholesterol, and they actually saw a pretty comparable lowering of LDL,” Kristina Petersen, PhD, an associate professor of nutritional sciences at Penn State, told HuffPost. “So we have quite a bit of evidence that it lowers LDL cholesterol, and this is really what the diet is best known for.”
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You might not have to go all in to see significant benefits.
Even if the idea of going completely meat-free seems outlandish, you still might be able to lower your heart disease risk by incorporating some of the portfolio diet into your eating habits. In a study published on Dec. 2 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Glenn and a team of researchers analyzed 30 years of data from a total of roughly 203,000 men and women, specifically looking at the intake of plant and animal protein.
The team then looked at the instances of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and coronary heart disease (CHD) among participants. After adjusting for medical history and lifestyle factors, the team found that those from the cohort with the highest plant protein intake saw a 28 percent lower risk of CVD and a 36 percent lower risk of CHD compared to those who ate the least amount of protein as part of their diet.
“The average American eats a 1:3 plant-to-animal protein ratio. Our findings suggest a ratio of at least 1:2 is much more effective in preventing CVD. For CHD prevention, a ratio of 1:1.3 or higher should come from plants,” Glenn said in a press release per the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
It’s just as important to cut back on red meat as it is to incorporate plant-based protein.
Ultimately, the team behind the latest study concluded that while more research is needed, it can be helpful to reduce red and processed meat in favor of plant-based proteins like nuts and legumes. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean eliminating them entirely.
“I think you can still incorporate the key features of the portfolio diet [such as whole grains, nuts, vegetables, beans, and fruit] without excluding animal products if you want to include those,” Petersen told HuffPost. “We have a lot of evidence for viscous fiber, plant sterols, soy, and nuts reducing cholesterol levels, so if you just ate more of those foods, you would see cholesterol lowering.”
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The takeaway.
The portfolio diet is a vegan eating regimen that focuses on plant-based protein from legumes, nuts, and seeds, as well as foods that naturally help suppress the uptake of bad LDL cholesterol. Research has shown those following could see a drastic drop in cholesterol, as well as lowering their risk for heart disease. Even those who don’t completely drop meat from their diet can see some benefits by increasing the ratio of plant protein to animal protein in their diets.
