Quite frequently, people will make claims that their preferred dietary religion pattern is guaranteed to make you age in reverse, render you immune from heart disease, and restore peace in the Middle East. And one of these diets is called the Portfolio Diet, which claims to lower LDL cholesterol “as much as a statin” based on this 4-week study in 2003 where this diet lowered LDL-C around 30%, which was comparable to lovastatin. (On a side note, lovastatin is a crappy first-generation statin, and Red Yeast Rice is essentially an unknown dose of lovastatin…I wouldn’t bother with either of them, even if the latter is on sale at Costco).
So what is the Portfolio Diet? It’s an incredibly strict vegetarian regimen that includes the “Core 4” components of Plant Sterols, Viscous Fibers, Soy Protein, and Nuts. Let’s take a look at each of these in a little more detail:
- Plant sterols (specifically 1g per 1000 calories in the form of plant margarine)
- Plant sterols compete for cholesterol absorption in the gut and usually result in a modest reduction in LDL-C…but if you happen to be a genetic sterol hyper-absorber, they are HIGHLY TOXIC and can accelerate vascular disease. Plant stanols (as found in Benecol), which tend to not be absorbed even in hyper-absorbers, would be a safer option if you insist on “betting the spread.”
- Viscous fibers (see my article on fiber HERE), specifically 9.8g per 1000 calories from oats, psyllium, and barley.
- Soy protein at 21.4g per 1000 calories from soy milk and soy “meat.”
- Alternative “milks” always crack me up…where do you grip the cashew to milk it? Is there a specific spot on edamame where you can latch?
- Additionally, this is a meager quantity of soy protein, which is an incomplete protein. Plant protein lacks sufficient leucine and the other essential amino acids necessary to optimize muscle protein synthesis in humans, and this is because we are human BEINGS not human BEANS. The purpose of plant protein is to give the plant structure, not to make it an Absolute Unit.
- 14g of almonds (a handful, basically) per 1000 calories
- Have you ever tried to eat “just a few” almonds? Have you ever been successful? Me neither. Almonds, pistachios, walnuts, etc., aren’t inherently evil foods, but you’re nuts if you think you can eat less than about 3000 calories worth in one sitting. Nuts are the “healthy” saboteur of many otherwise well-constructed diets.
- Additionally, this diet “emphasizes eggplant and okra,” which briefly leads to much rejoicing among the Eggplant Parmigiana and Fried Okra enthusiasts. But that’s like saying you get your vegetables from potato chips…the way the eggplant and okra are meant to be consumed in this diet almost makes a statin seem appetizing.
Ok, so after that completely unbiased summary of the Portfolio Diet components, let’s take a look at how this Miracle Diet performs in “the real world” and see if it still lowers LDL-C about 30% like it did in the initial small cohort. This 6-month study featured an “intensive” and a “regular” portfolio diet compared to a low-saturated fat control group. “Intensive” just means that you were annoyed more frequently given more extensive and specific dietary counseling versus receiving more general advice from dietitians regarding the Core 4 (Sterols, soy, fiber, nuts) in the “Regular” group.
Here are some of the results:
- The LDL-C decreased 13.8% in the “Intensive” group and 13.1% in the “Regular” group.
- Adherence to the Portfolio Diet ranged from 40-46% and there was a 22.6% dropout rate.
- The reductions in the inflammatory marker hs-CRP seen in the initial 4-week study were not replicated in this trial of longer duration.
So should you adopt the Portfolio Diet? If your Financial Portfolio is robust enough to afford the stanol spreads, mystery meats, tofurky, and estrogenic edibles, then I guess it’s not an “Impossible” option. The money in your bank account will probably drop more than your LDL-C, but maybe that’s worth it for you. There are multiple dietary patterns that can result in a decent metabolic Home Security System alongside a simultaneously safe Lipid Neighborhood. As for me, I’ll be over here “Prioritizing (Complete) Protein, Eating Real Food” if you need me😊
