#1 Best Meal to UNCLOG Your Arteries (Backed by Science)

0:00 If you ask 10 people what the best hearthealthy diet is, you're going to get 10 different answers. Somebody would say, "You got to cut out carbohydrates or you got to do keto or carnivore." And another person may say, "Well, you have to avoid meat and go vegan." And then there's Mediterranean and Dash and Paleo. But after more than 10 years of practicing medicine and helping my patients use food as medicine, what I found was the prescribing a diet often times is not that helpful because many people, not everyone, but many cannot stick to a very restrictive plan. And none of those diets matter if you can't stay on them. So the way I see it, following a nutrition plan that's only 70% good, but one that we can do for the rest of our lives is much better than

0:46 something that's 100%, but we can only stick to it for 6 months. So the goal isn't to chase the next perfect diet, but to pick the most high yield foods that keep showing up again and again across all studies and meta analyses that have been done on heart disease. And make sure you incorporate them into your routine, whatever that routine may be. And as we go through these, I also want to go over foods that are sold as heart healthy, but you need to be careful with. And at the end of the video, I want to go over the best exercise and a good supplement that has really good evidence behind them to help you reverse plaques even faster. Now, before we go over the best foods, you have to understand how we get plaques in the first place. Because if you understand that process, you'll be able to tailor with more precision which high yield foods you need to lean into.

1:32 because everyone's individual circumstances and risk are different and what works for one person may not work for you. So arterial plaque buildup is not a simple process. It's not just high cholesterol and it's not high sugars or high blood pressure or inflammation. plaque forms with a perfect storm of endothelial damage which is just injury to the thin layer of cells that lines the inner surface of blood vessels and then LDL particles that contain apo B slip through the vessel wall and then inflammation oxidizes those particles and that's what triggers your immune system to step in and try to repair the damage but instead it just causes the plaque to grow even bigger and the more oxidative stress in the environment the more the cycle repeats itself. So the

2:17 high yield foods that you need to incorporate into your regimen need to target all those mechanisms. Lower Apo B and reduce inflammation and improve your nitric oxide which then lowers your blood pressure and protects the endothelium. And finally you need to calm down that overreactive immune response. So if you look through all the major studies and meta analyses of diets that help with atheroscerosis one pattern that emerges is the foods that are rich in lycopine. And lycopine is a carotenoid that's mainly found in red and pink fruits and vegetables. So you get it in tomatoes and guava. Watermelon has a lot of lycopine, pink grapefruit, papayas. And lycopine helps because it's an incredibly powerful antioxidant. And one of the main drivers of plaque formation is oxidative stress that leads

3:03 to cell damage. So lycopene can reverse that by targeting harmful reactive oxygen species. And we have studies that show that high carotenoid levels may slow early stages of atheroscerosis progression. And there was an observational study out of Finland that suggested that lycopene or processed tomato intake may reduce kurateed atheroscerosis. Now another recurring theme that I see in all of these studies is phytosteriles which is just a natural plant compound that's found in nuts and seeds especially flax seed and sesame seeds. And you can also find phytosteriles in legumes and whole grains and in many fruits and vegetables like carrots and broccololis and uh you can find them avocados and in many leafy green vegetables. So phytosteriles look almost identical to cholesterol and when

3:50 you eat them they compete with cholesterol for absorption in your intestines which means less cholesterol can make it through and get absorbed. But that's not where the magic happens. Because when it comes to cholesterol in our blood, most of it does not come from cholesterol that we eat. It's the cholesterol that's produced internally by our liver. So how this whole process works is the liver senses a drop in absorb cholesterol. And because your liver tries to maintain its own cholesterol balance and homeostasis, it starts pulling more LDL particles out of the bloodstream. So over time, you basically get less LDLs that carry apo B moving through your arteries. And that's important because LDL and more precisely Apo B has been shown to cause heart disease. If you look at meta analyses

4:36 and if you look at the mandelian randomization studies, it is one of the main drivers of aththeroscerosis. It's not the only factor, but it's key in developing plaques. And we have several meta analyses that show that eating more phytosteriles can significantly reduce your LDL with an average reduction of about 14 mg per deciliter. Okay, another food that is essential for plaque reversal are flavonoids, which are just natural compounds that are found in fruits like berries and apples and oranges. You can also find them in onions and leafy greens. And there's a lot of flavonoids in dark chocolate. So, this is how they work. When plaque builds up in your blood vessels, it starts with LDL particles getting trapped and damaged in the inner lining of your blood vessels. And this LDL

5:22 particle starts getting oxidized which makes the whole area very sticky. So white blood cells called macrofasages are drawn to that area and they cause inflammation. And this whole process is what makes the plaque grow. So this is where flavonoids come in. They lower that adhesion molecule expression. Basically they make arterial walls less sticky so fewer cells can attach and that in turn lowers inflammation and it helps macrofasages work in a calmer way. so they don't turn LDL into its damaged and oxidized form. And one subset of flavonoids that is especially important is kakans which you can find in green and black teas. And there was a meta analysis that looked at nine prospective studies that showed that drinking three or more cups of green or black tea is

6:07 associated with a 21% reduced risk of stroke compared to the consumption of less than one cup per day. Now another important and very powerful nutrient is extra virgin olive oil. Now this pops up across many studies and high intake is associated with a significant reduction in major cardiovascular events like heart attacks. Olive oil is very high in polyphenols and monossaturated fats which have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. So they help smooth out the damaged endthelium or arterial inner lining. And on top of that olive oil may also help with insulin sensitivity and reduce inflammation. So mechanistically you target multiple steps that lead to atheroscerosis. Now another food that will help is fatty fish like salmon and

6:53 mackerel or sardines. These fish are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, especially EPA and DHA that are incredibly important in keeping your heart and blood vessels healthy. There's clinical studies that show that people eating fatty fish one to three times per week had a lower risk of heart disease and strokes. And then we have the multithnic study of aththeroscerosis which is one of the largest and longerunning studies on heart disease that found that higher DHA levels was associated with a 12% lower risk of corateed plaque progression. So this is the plaque that can lead to strokes. These omega-3 fatty acids calm down the immune response that aggravates plaques and they can also increase your nitric oxide production which then stabilizes the plaque and makes it less likely to rupture and

7:40 cause clots and problems downstream. Now, when it comes to atheroscerosis, it's not enough to eat the right foods, but it's also just as important to try to limit certain foods, especially foods that are very inflammatory. So, no surprise here, but we especially want to be careful with processed carbohydrates like pastries and cereals and any foods that are full of sugar or fructose. So, some of the most common offenders that I see, so we're talking about foods that are promoted as hardhealthy, but they're actually harming you, flavored yogurts. Many of them are packed with added sugar. So, it's much better to buy plain full fat yogurts and just add your own sweetener of choice for taste. Now, at this point, most people know that most breakfast cereals are basically dessert

8:25 and just processed sugars, but there's alternatives that masquerade themselves as healthy, but are not really that much better. So, I'm talking about many breakfast bars or granola bars. Make sure you look at the ingredient labels, as many of those are still packed with sugar, but just with healthier packaging. And another sneaky food that I always bring up is, well, it's not a food, but it's a drink and it's juices. If you drink apple juice or orange juice, any type of juice, you're probably getting a lot of added sugars. But even if the label on the bottle says there's no added sugars or this product only has natural sugars, well, these sugars may be natural, but they're still absorbed in a highly concentrated form. And another problem is these juices don't come with a protective fiber that we would normally get if we're getting it from a fresh fruit. So, as I

9:11 mentioned before, fresh fruits are wonderful and they're heart healthy, but it's very easy to overconume sugars and fructose in a fruit if you're getting it in liquid form. Now, as a bonus, here's some non-food related things that will also help you expedite reversing your atheroscerosis. First, no surprise here, but exercise is extremely important for your heart health. But there's one type of exercise where we actually have evidence in showing that it can reverse arterial plaques. So there was a randomized control study published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology that showed that just 6 months of supervised highintensity interval training or HIT showed a significant reduction in plaque volume. And what was especially amazing, the plaque volume regression after 6 months of this exercise was slightly larger than what they observe with statin

9:58 intervention. Now because aththeroscerosis is a disease that develops over many years and decades, we don't know how that translates to actual clinical outcomes. But the initial results from the study are pretty remarkable. Now beyond exercise, there is one supplement that I want to highlight that actually has decent evidence in slowing the progression of coronary atheroscerosis and that is aged garlic extract. So there was a double blind randomized control trial that showed that aged garlic extract can stabilize vulnerable plaques. And there was another randomized control trial that showed that the group that was randomized to take an age garlic extract for one year had a lower progression of coronary artery calcification and improve blood pressure. Now, one more bonus tactic that I recommend to my patients that may help improve cardiovascular health and that is sauna

10:45 therapy. Now, this is not something where we have direct evidence that shows plaque stabilization or regression with sauna, but there's plenty of indirect associations. So there's studies that show a link between sauna bathing and improvement in endothelial function. And there's meta analyses like this one that show that sauna can help with blood pressure. Now most of the evidence is based on observational and mechanistic data, but there is enough indirect data that supports its health benefits. Not just when it comes to heart disease, but there's also linked to significantly lower risk of all cause mortality. So, based on the current imperfect evidence, I still think it's a worthwhile intervention to try if you have access to saunas. All right, I hope this was helpful.