Health Journal Online

Tag: Eating

  • Man’s Hands Seemingly Turn Yellow After Only Eating Butter, Cheese and Meat in Viral ‘Carnivore Diet’

    Man’s Hands Seemingly Turn Yellow After Only Eating Butter, Cheese and Meat in Viral ‘Carnivore Diet’

    A Florida man had to be treated for yellow nodules in his skin which were emanating ooze following eight months of being on a “carnivore diet” where he exclusively ate meat and dairy.

    The man in his mid-40s checked himself into a Tampa hospital after yellowish nodules on the palms of his hands, elbows and the soles of his feet began oozing liquid. He continued to explain to doctors that he had been following a “carnivore diet” for the past eight months, consuming entire sticks of butter, 6-9 pounds of cheese and hamburger patties daily.

    “A diagnosis of xanthelasma was made. This case highlights the impact of dietary patterns on lipid levels and the importance of managing hypercholesterolemia to prevent complications,” says the case report published in JAMA Network.

    The carnivore diet encourages followers to consume only animal products, including meat, dairy and eggs. The man insisted that the diet had improved his health, allowing him to lose weight and improving his energy levels. However, the man’s cholesterol levels were incredibly high, at 1,000 mg/dL. Normal cholesterol levels are at under 200mg/dL.

    The authors of the study noted that the case “highlights the impact of dietary patterns on lipid levels and the importance of managing hypercholesterolemia to prevent complications.”

    Originally published by Latin Times.

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  • Planning To Eat Clean In The New Year? Your Obsession With a Healthy Diet Shouldn’t Turn Into Eating Disorder

    Planning To Eat Clean In The New Year? Your Obsession With a Healthy Diet Shouldn’t Turn Into Eating Disorder

    With the New Year just around the corner, so are resolutions for a healthier year. If you have already committed to eating clean in the coming year, be cautious—obsessing over healthy eating can take a toll on your mental health and potentially lead to eating disorders.

    Orthorexia nervosa (ON) is an obsession with eating “pure” foods to the point that it can take over your social life and mental well-being. Individuals may start organizing their entire schedule around strict dietary rules, skipping social events like Christmas parties or family dinners, and feel stressed or anxious when their eating routines are disrupted.

    Many people may fall into the trap of extreme dieting that cuts out carbohydrates, proteins, and essential vitamins, all in the name of healthy eating. However, this approach can put the body at risk of nutrient deficiencies, leading to symptoms such as hair loss, brittle nails, missed menstrual cycles, and constant fatigue.

    If this obsession with healthy eating goes unchecked, it can escalate into more serious problems, potentially leading to clinical eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia.

    In a groundbreaking study, researchers explored how healthy eating addiction and extreme beauty ideals among fashion models can trigger eating and body image disorders. Their findings published in Eating and Weight Disorders – Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia, and Obesity, revealed that while 95% of the participants both models and the control group had positive emotions associated with healthy eating, over 35% of female models exhibited signs of ON and over 20% in the control group. The survey also revealed a troubling trend regarding the body mass index (BMI) of the fashion models, with a significant 88.7% of them falling below the underweight threshold.

    For those looking to adopt a healthy lifestyle in the New Year, Dr. Nikolett Bogár, a PhD student researching eating disorders at the Institute of Behavioral Sciences at Semmelweis University, recommends focusing on a long-term, balanced diet while recognizing that eating is not just about nutrition but also a social and cultural experience. She advises against categorizing foods as strictly good or bad.

    “Aim for a long-term, balanced diet rather than an ultra-clean one in January. Occasionally indulging in chocolates or holiday treats should be part of your diet – without guilt,” Dr. Bogár, advises.

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  • STRIPED 2024 Newsletter: Advancing eating disorder prevention through advocacy, research, and youth voices

    STRIPED 2024 Newsletter: Advancing eating disorder prevention through advocacy, research, and youth voices

    Decorative image showing the word Newsletter alongside STRIPED's logo

    Discover the latest updates from the Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders (STRIPED) in our 2024 Annual Newsletter. This edition spotlights the inspiring work of youth advocates featured in the new documentary Generation Flex, the restoration of critical disordered eating questions into the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, and efforts to protect youth from harmful diet pills and muscle-building supplements. Through policy change, research, and youth-driven advocacy, STRIPED continues to push for meaningful progress in eating disorder prevention.

    Explore More:

    Join the Conversation:

    • Follow Us: Stay connected through our social media channels for real-time updates and community engagement.
    • Contact Us: For inquiries or to get involved, email us at STRIPED@hsph.harvard.edu.

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  • Eating to Reverse Heart Failure 

    Eating to Reverse Heart Failure 

    An entire issue of a cardiology journal dedicated to plant-based nutrition explores the role an evidence-based diet can play in the reversal of congestive heart failure.

    It is a hopeful sign of the times when an entire issue of a cardiology journal is not just dedicated to nutrition, but to a plant-based diet in particular. Dr. Kim Williams, past president of the American College of Cardiology, starts his editorial with a quote attributed to the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer: “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” He goes on to write that “the truth (i.e., evidence) for the benefits of plant-based nutrition continues to mount.” We’ve got the evidence. The problem is the “inertia, culture, habit, and widespread marketing of unhealthy foods. Our goal must be to get the data out to the medical community and the public where it can actually change lives—creating healthier and longer ones.” That’s essentially my life’s mission in four words: Get the data out. Based on what we already know in the existing medical literature, “plant-based nutrition…clearly represents the single most important yet underutilized opportunity to reverse the pending obesity and diabetes-induced epidemic of morbidity and mortality,” meaning disease and death.

    As I discuss in my video How to Reverse Heart Failure with Diet, the issue featured your typical heart disease reversal cases, including a 77-year-old woman with such bad heart disease that she couldn’t walk more than half a block or go up a single flight of stairs. She had severe blockages in all three of her main arteries and was referred to open-heart surgery for a bypass. However, instead of surgery, “she chose to adopt a whole-food plant-based diet, which included all vegetables, fruits, whole grains, potatoes, beans, legumes and nuts.” Even though “she described her previous diet as a ‘healthy’ Western one,” within a single month of going plant-based, “her symptoms had nearly resolved”—and forgot about walking a block. “She was able to walk on a treadmill for up to 50 min without chest discomfort or dyspnea,” becoming out of breath. Her cholesterol dropped about a hundred points from around 220 mg/dL (5.7 mmol/L) down to 120 mg/dL (3.2 mmol/L), with an LDL under 60 mg/dL (1.5 mmol/L). Then, four to five months later, she must have started missing her “chicken, fish, low-fat dairy and other animal products” and “returned to her prior eating habits.” Within a few weeks, with no change in her medications or anything else, her chest pain returned and she went on to have her chest sawed in half after all. After the surgery, she continued to eat the same diet that had contributed to causing her disease in the first place, then went on to have further disease progression.

    Another case featured in the journal has a happier ending. It started out similarly: A 60-year-old man with severe chest pain after walking just half a block decided to take control of his health destiny and switched to a whole food, plant-based diet. “He described his prior diet as a ‘healthy’ diet of skinless chicken, fish, and low-fat dairy with some vegetables, fruits, and nuts”—a diet that had been choking off his heart. Within a few weeks, he experienced the same amazing transformation—from not being able to exercise at all to walking a mile, then being able to jog more than four miles (6.4 km), completely asymptomatic, off all drugs, without any surgery, and off to live happily ever after.

    Now, of course, case reports are just glorified anecdotes. What we need is a randomized controlled trial to prove that heart disease can be reversed with lifestyle changes alone. Guess what? There was one published three decades ago, proving angiographic reversal of heart disease in 82 percent of the patients. Their arteries opened up without drugs and without surgery. So, these case reports are just to remind us that hundreds of thousands of individuals continue to needlessly die every year from what was proven to be a reversible condition decades ago.

    The conventional use of case reports, though, is to present novel results in the hopes of inspiring trials to put them to the test. For example, consider this case report on a plant-based diet for congestive heart failure—not simply coronary artery disease. In this case, the heart muscle itself was so weakened that it couldn’t efficiently pump blood. It was only able to eject about 35 percent of the blood in the main heart chamber with every beat, whereas, normally, the heart can pump out at least 50 percent. And that’s exactly what the patient’s heart was able to do just six weeks after switching to a whole food, plant-based diet, which he chose to do instead of getting his chest cracked open. The researchers wrote: “To our knowledge, this is the first report of an improvement in heart failure symptoms and left ventricular ejection fraction following adoption of a plant-based diet.” It may be the first, but it isn’t the last.

    Another case: A 54-year-old woman, obese and diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, presented with swelling ankles due to her heart failure. She switched from her regular diet of chicken and fish to whole plant foods. She started eating more healthfully, lost 50 pounds, and reversed her diabetes—meaning she had normal blood sugars on a normal diet without the use of diabetes medications. Her heart function normalized, too, going from an abysmal ejection fraction of just 25 percent up to normal, as you can see below and at 5:00 in my video. Since it wasn’t a randomized controlled trial, all we can say is that her improvements coincided with her adoption of a whole food, plant-based diet. But, “given the burden of heart failure [as a leading cause of death], its adverse prognosis,” meaning it usually worsens progressively, “and the overall evidence to date, a plant-based diet should be considered as part of a multifaceted approach to heart failure care.” We already know it can reverse coronary artery disease, so any heart failure benefits would just be a bonus.

    Now, we just need good strategies for healthcare “practitioners to support patients in plant-based eating.” Shown below and at 5:42 in my video are some excellent suggestions to pause and reflect on. 

    Doctors, for example, can “use the Plant Rx pads produced by the Plantrician Project” and prescribe a good website or two, like NutritionFacts.org, as seen below and at 5:50 in my video. 

    “While it is certainly true that many people would be resistant to fundamental dietary changes, it is equally true that millions of intelligent people motivated to preserve their health are now taking half-way measures that may provide only modest benefit—choosing leaner cuts of meat, using reduced-fat dairy products….Most of these people have neither the time nor the training to evaluate the biomedical literature themselves. Don’t they deserve honest, forthright advice when their lives are at stake? Those who wish to ignore this advice, or implement it only partially, are at liberty to do so.”

    Do you want to go smoke cigarettes? Bungee jump? It’s your body, your choice. It’s up to each of us to make our own decisions as to what to eat and how to live, but we should make these choices consciously, educating ourselves about the predictable consequences of our actions.

    Did I say reverse coronary heart disease? As in reverse the number one killer of men and women? I’ve got a lot of videos on the topic, and How Not to Die from Heart Disease is a good place to start.

    Check out the Plantrician Project at plantricianproject.org. I am a proud supporter. 



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  • Eating to Fight the Climate Crisis 

    Eating to Fight the Climate Crisis 

    The EAT-Lancet Commission lays out the best diet for human and planetary health.

    “Scientists have a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity of any catastrophic threat and to ‘tell it like it is.’” In November 2019, more than 11,000 scientists from 150 countries declared “clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency.” As you can see in a series of graphs starting at 0:33 in my video Win-Win Dietary Solutions to the Climate Crisis, CO2 levels are rising and the glaciers are melting, as is Antarctica. The oceans are getting hotter, and more acidic. Sea levels are rising, and extreme weather events are escalating. Yes, the use of fossil fuels is going up, for air travel, for example, but so is per capita meat consumption. In fact, one of the solutions offered by scientists to help the climate crisis is “eating mostly plant-based foods while reducing the global consumption of animal products….”

    What makes “designing a sustainable diet” so easy is that “the dietary advice is the same: eat less meat.” It’s good for our personal health (by reducing the risk of our number one killer, for instance), as well as planetary health. As you can see below and at 1:24 in my video, the least healthy foods also cause the worst environmental impact. 

    Indeed, the foods with the most nutrition just so happen to be the foods that cause the lowest greenhouse gas emissions, as shown below and at 1:31 in my video, so the effect is a win-win. 

    Let’s put it all together. If we are to “redesign the global food system for human and planetary health,” which is to say human health, planetary health, and future human health, what would it look like? Enter the EAT-Lancet Commission. What was the “result of more than 2 years of collaboration between 37 experts from 16 countries”? Suggesting a cut in total meat consumption down to no more than an ounce a day (28 g), which is around the weight of a single chicken nugget, and, concurrently, a dramatic increase in our intakes of legumes (beans, split peas, chickpeas, and lentils), vegetables, nuts, and fruits. We aren’t only in a climate crisis, but a health crisis, too. “Unhealthy diets pose a greater risk to morbidity and mortality than does unsafe sex, and alcohol, drug, and tobacco use combined.” But we can address both crises at the same time by “increasing consumption of plant-based foods and substantially reducing our consumption of animal source foods.”

    Eating such a diet could save the lives of more than 10 million people a year. It may also help save the world. The Paris Agreement had set out a boundary condition, an aspirational goal for a carbon budget to help prevent catastrophic impacts. “Staying within the boundary for climate change can be achieved by consuming plant-based diets.”

    What’s more, “the economic value of the health benefits associated with more plant-based diets is comparable with, or exceeds, the value of the environmental benefits….” Just the healthcare benefits alone of a healthy global diet that’s predominantly plant-based, vegetarian, or vegan could exceed the price of the carbon saved, as you can see below and at 3:11 in my video. We’re talking up to $30 trillion a year saved from just the health benefits of more healthful eating. 

    Now, if the health of yourself, the planet, and your loved ones doesn’t quite motivate you, consider you may also be facing threats to the global beer supply. The title of the paper tells the story: “Decreases in Global Beer Supply Due to Extreme Drought and Heat.”

    And healthier diets don’t just reduce greenhouse gas emissions. “Livestock production is the single largest driver of habitat loss,” so reducing meat consumption is also the key to biodiversity conservation. Researchers “suggest…reducing demand for animal-based food products and increasing proportions of plant-based foods in diets, the latter ideally to a global average of 90% of food consumed.” As well, “livestock production is also a leading cause of climate change, soil loss, and water and nutrient pollution,” yet it appears to be “a blind spot in water policy.” “Despite the fact that animal products form the single most important factor in humanity’s WF [water footprint], water managers never talk about meat or dairy.”

    It isn’t only animal products, though. Yes, at least 80 percent of the deforestation in the Amazon is to raise cattle and grow feed crops like soybeans to export to other farm animals, but it’s also to make vegetable oil, mostly from palm and soy. Both crops have been expanding, “resulting in massive deforestation accompanied by declines in biodiversity and the release of sequestered carbon into the atmosphere…It will be particularly egregious if that deforestation takes place for the sake of junk food….”

    Not everyone agrees that we should be moving to healthier diets, though. The World Health Organization actually pulled out of the EAT-Lancet Commission that “promotes global move to plant-based foods.” See, if we “focused on promoting predominantly plant-based foods, and excluding foods deemed unhealthy, including meat and other animal-based foods,” such a diet could save 10 million lives a year and $30 trillion in healthcare costs, and help save the entire planet, but it “could lead to the loss of…jobs linked to animal husbandry and the production of ‘unhealthy’ foods….”

    So Which Foods Have the Lowest Carbon Footprint? Find out next, then stay tuned for Which Diets Have the Lowest Carbon Footprint?.

    Before this video, I think the only global warming video I had to date was Diet and Climate Change: Cooking Up a Storm. I’m pleased I could add to this important topic.

    One way to reduce the climate impact of meat is to switch to plant-based or cultivated meat. I did a webinar on it, and you can get the digital download here.



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  • History Of Eating Disorders, Pre-Pregnancy Obesity Raises Offspring’s Risk Of Mental Health Diagnosis

    History Of Eating Disorders, Pre-Pregnancy Obesity Raises Offspring’s Risk Of Mental Health Diagnosis

    Children whose mothers have a history of eating disorders and obesity before pregnancy are at a greater risk of mental health diagnosis, a recent study revealed.

    The results of the latest study involving a Finnish population of nearly 400,000 mothers and around 650,000 offspring revealed significant links between maternal health and the mental well-being of their children.

    The research suggests associations between a mother’s history of eating disorders and pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) higher than the normal weight range to most of the nine psychiatric diagnoses examined in the offspring.

    The psychiatric diagnoses involved in the study include mood and anxiety disorders, sleep disorders, intellectual disabilities, specific developmental disorders, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ADHD, conduct disorders, social functioning and tic disorders (like selective mutism and Tourette syndrome), as well as feeding disorders in infancy and childhood.

    The results showed that around 53% had pre-pregnancy overweight or obesity, nearly 6% had underweight, and 1.6% had a history of an eating disorder.

    When comparing differences in the impact of maternal eating disorders and higher BMI on children’s mental health diagnoses, the study found generally stronger associations with maternal eating disorders than those linked to maternal BMI.

    “The largest effect sizes were observed for maternal eating disorders not otherwise specified in association with offspring sleep disorders and social functioning and tic disorders, while for maternal severe pre-pregnancy obesity, offspring intellectual disabilities had the largest effect size,” the researchers wrote in the study published in Jama Network.

    Eating disorders not otherwise specified (EDNOS) refer to a category of eating disorders that do not fit the specific criteria for more commonly recognized disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder. Some examples of EDNOS include behaviors such as pica, which involves cravings for and consumption of non-food items, or night eating syndrome, characterized by binge eating during the evening hours.

    “The study confirms previously published associations between maternal eating disorders and BMI and offspring psychiatric disorder, but also reports new associations,” Ida Nilsson, a study author told MedPage Today.

    “The findings underline the importance of considering maternal eating disorders and BMI in maternity care, aiming to reduce the number of offspring with neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders. The findings also strengthen the importance of the nutrition of pregnant women,” Nilsson said.

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  • Eating an Anti-Inflammatory Diet for Lupus 

    Eating an Anti-Inflammatory Diet for Lupus 

    Green smoothies are put to the test for the autoimmune disease lupus.

    There are dozens and dozens of journals I try to stay on top of every month, and one I always anticipate is The International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention, a peer-reviewed medical “journal created to document the science of nutrition and lifestyle to prevent, suspend and reverse disease,” with an editor-in-chief no less prestigious than Dr. Kim Williams, past president of the American College of Cardiology. I was honored to join its editorial advisory board, along with so many of my heroes. The best part? It’s free. Go to IJDRP.org and put in your email to subscribe at no cost, and you’ll be alerted when new issues are out, which you can download in full in PDF form. (Did I mention it’s free?)

    When it comes to chronic lifestyle diseases, wrote Dr. Williams, “Instead of preventing chronic lifestyle diseases, we [doctors] manage. Never cure, just mitigate. Why? Because of finance, culture, habit, and tradition.” There are many of us, though, who “envision a world where trillions of dollars are not spent on medical care that should never have been necessary, but rather on infrastructure, environment, education, and advancing science. For this reason, comes The International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention (IJDRP).” After all, wrote the journal’s co-founder, “Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.”

    To give you a taste of the journal: How about pitting plants against one of the most inflammatory diseases out there—lupus, an autoimmune disease in which your body can start attacking your DNA? Kidney inflammation is a common consequence, and even with our armamentarium of immunosuppressant drugs and steroids, lupus-induced kidney inflammation can lead to end-stage renal disease, which means dialysis, and even death. That is, unless you pack your diet with some of the most anti-inflammatory foods out there and your kidney function improves so much you no longer need dialysis or a kidney transplant. Another similar case was presented with a resolution in symptoms and normal kidney function, unless the patient deviated from the diet and his symptoms then reappeared.

    As I discuss in my video Anti-Inflammatory Diet for Lupus, even just cutting out animal products can make a difference. Researchers randomized people to remove meat, eggs, and dairy from their diets without significantly increasing fruit and vegetable intake and found that doing just that can lower C-reactive protein levels by nearly a third within eight weeks, as you can see below and at 2:21 in my video. (Our C-reactive protein level is a sensitive indicator of whole-body inflammation.)

    But with lupus, the researchers didn’t mess around. Each day, the study subjects were to eat a pound of leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables like kale, fruits like berries, and lots of chia or flax, and drink a gallon of water. We’re talking about a green smoothie diet to extinguish lupus flares. (Note, though, that if your kidneys are already compromised, this should be done under physician supervision so they can monitor your electrolytes like potassium and make sure you don’t get overloaded with fluid.) Bottom line? With such remarkable improvements due to dietary changes alone, the hope is that researchers will take up the mantle and formally put it to the test. 

    Reversals of autoimmune inflammatory skin disease can be particularly striking visually. A woman with a 35-year history of psoriasis that had been unsuccessfully managed for 19 years with drugs suffered from other autoimmune conditions, including Sjogren’s syndrome. She was put on an extraordinarily healthy diet packed with greens and other vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, avocados, and some whole grains, and boom! Within one year, she went from 40 percent of her entire body surface area inflamed and affected down to 0 percent, completely clear, and, as a bonus, her Sjogren’s symptoms resolved, too, while helping to normalize her weight and cholesterol. You can see before and after photos below and at 3:39 in my video. 

    I think I only have one other video on lupus: Fighting Lupus with Turmeric: Good as Gold. It’s not for lack of trying, though. There just hasn’t been much research out there.

    I talk about another autoimmune disease, type 1 diabetes, in Type 1 Diabetes Treatment: A Plant-Based Diet.

    To read and subscribe—for free—to The International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention, visit www.IJDRP.org.



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  • Protected: The winding road to eating disorder recovery

    Protected: The winding road to eating disorder recovery

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  • Eating Fish During Pregnancy May Cut Offspring’s Autism Risk, Not Omega-3: Study Says

    Eating Fish During Pregnancy May Cut Offspring’s Autism Risk, Not Omega-3: Study Says

    Prenatal consumption of fish may reduce autism risk in children, but omega-3 supplements may not have the same effect, a recent study revealed.

    Including fish in the diet during pregnancy is linked to a 20% reduction in the risk of autism spectrum disorder and a decreased risk of autism-related traits in children, with particularly notable benefits for female offspring, according to the study published in the American Journal Of Clinical Nutrition.

    “Our study contributes to a growing body of evidence that demonstrates the role that prenatal diet can play in autism-related outcomes in offspring,” said the researcher Dr. Emily Oken in a news release.

    To understand how intake of fish and omega-3 supplements during pregnancy affects neurodevelopmental outcomes, researchers evaluated the dietary information of around 4,000 participants. Based on the frequency of fish consumption, the participants were grouped into four: less than once a month, more than once a month but less than weekly, weekly, and two or more servings per week.

    Around 25% of them never ate fish or consumed it less than once a month, and most of the participants never took omega-3 fish oil supplements during their pregnancy.

    The researchers then examined the incidence of autism diagnoses in children and parent-reported autism-related traits, which were measured using the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS), a widely used survey completed by parents or caregivers.

    “Consuming fish during pregnancy was associated with a lower likelihood of offspring being diagnosed with autism and a slight decrease in total SRS scores compared to not eating fish. These results were consistent across all levels of fish consumption, from “any” amount or “less than once per week” to “more than twice per week,” the news release stated.

    However, the researchers could not find any significant association between omega-3 conception and autism diagnosis, or traits.

    “This study provides yet more evidence for the safety and benefit of regular fish consumption during pregnancy. Other proven benefits include lower risk for preterm birth and improved cognitive development,” said Dr. Oken.

    “Given the low fish intake in the United States general population and the rising autism prevalence, these findings suggest the need for better public health messaging regarding guidelines on fish intake for pregnant individuals,” the researchers concluded.

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  • Eating to Lower Lp(a) 

    Eating to Lower Lp(a) 

    What should we eat—and not eat—to lower the cardiovascular disease risk factor lipoprotein(a)?

    Lipoprotein A, also known as Lp(a), is an independent, genetic, and causal factor for cardiovascular disease and heart attacks. At any level of LDL cholesterol, our risk of heart attack and stroke is two- to three-fold higher when our Lp(a) is elevated. With a high enough Lp(a) level, atherosclerosis continues to progress even if we get our LDL cholesterol way down, which may help explain why so many people continue to have heart attacks and strokes even under treatment for high cholesterol. It’s been suggested that “it would be worthwhile to check Lp(a) levels in a patient who has suffered an event but has no traditional risk factors to explain it.” What’s the point of checking it, though, if there isn’t much we can do about it? “To date, no drug to reduce circulating Lp(a) levels has been approved for clinical use.”

    Some researchers blame our lack of knowledge on the fact that Lp(a) is not found in typical lab animals, like rats and mice. It’s only found in two places in nature: primates and hedgehogs. Hedgehogs? How strange is that? No wonder Lp(a) is “an enigmatic protein that has mystified medical scientists ever since” it was first discovered more than half a century ago. But who needs mice when you have men? The level in our bloodstream is “primarily determined” by genetics. For the longest time, Lp(a) was not thought to be significantly influenced by factors such as diet. Given its similarity to LDL, though, one might assume lifestyle changes, “such as increased physical activity or the adoption of a healthy diet,” would help. “However, the effects of these interventions on Lp(a) concentrations are so far either only marginal or lacking in evidence,” but might that be because they have not tried a plant-based diet yet?

    As I discuss in my video How to Lower Lp(a) with Diet, when it comes to raising LDL cholesterol, we’ve known for years that the trans fats found in meat and dairy are just as bad as the industrially produced trans fats found in partially hydrogenated oil and junk food. But, when it comes to Lp(a), as you can see below and at 2:05 in my video, trans fats from meat and dairy appear to be even worse. 

    Just cutting out meat and following a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet did not appear to help, but, as you can see below and at 2:19 in my video, when study participants were put on a whole food, plant-based diet packed with a dozen servings of fruits and vegetables a day, their Lp(a) levels dropped by 16 percent within four weeks. 

    Of course, in those 30 days, the study subjects also lost about 15 pounds, as you can see below and at 2:28, but weight loss does not appear to affect Lp(a) levels, so you figure that it must have been due to the diet. 

    If you’re already eating a healthy plant-based diet and your Lp(a) levels are still too high, are there any particular foods that can help? As with cholesterol, even if the average total cholesterol of those eating strictly plant-based may be right on target at less than 150, with an LDL under 70, there’s a bell curve with plus or minus 30 points that fall on either side, as you can see below and at 2:45 in my video. 

    Enter the “Portfolio Diet,” which is not only plant-based, but also adds specific cholesterol-lowing foods—so, think nuts, beans, oatmeal, and berries to drag cholesterol down even further. The infographic is below and at 3:11 in my video.  

    What about Lp(a)? Nuts have been put to the test. Two and a half ounces of almonds every day dropped levels, but only by about 8 percent. That is better than another nut study, though, that found no effect at all, as you can see below and at 3:29 in my video. An additional study found “no significant changes,” and researchers reported that subjects in their study “did not experience a change in Lp(a).” Ah, nuts.  

    There is one plant that appears to drop Lp(a) levels by 20 percent, which is enough to take people exceeding the U.S. cut-off down to a more optimum level. And that plant is a fruit: Emblica officinalis, otherwise known as amla or Indian gooseberry. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study asked smokers before and after the trial about their “mouth hygiene, cough with expectoration, shortness of breath on exertion, loss of appetite, feelings of impending doom, palpitation, sleep deprivation, irritability, heartburn and tiredness,” as well as such objective measurements as their blood count, cholesterol, DNA damage, antioxidant status, and lung function. The amla extract used “showed a significant improvement compared to the placebo group in all the subjective and objective parameters tested with no reports of adverse events.” No side effects at all. That’s unbelievable! No, that’s unbelievable. And indeed, it’s completely not true.  

    Yes, subjective complaints got better in the amla group, but they got better in the placebo group, too, with arbitrary scoring systems and no statistical analysis whatsoever. And, of the two dozen objective measures, only half could be said to reach any kind of before-and-after statistical significance and only three were significant enough to account for the fact that if you measure two dozen things, a few might pop up as positive if only by chance. Any time you see this kind of spin in the abstract, which is sometimes the only part of a study people read, you should suspect some kind of conflict of interest. However, no conflicts of interest were declared by the researchers, but that’s bullsh*t, as the study was funded by the very company selling those amla supplements! Sigh.

    Anyway, one of those three significant findings was the Lp(a), so it might be worth a try in the context of a plant-based diet, which, in addition to helping with weight loss, can dramatically improve blood pressure (even after cutting down on blood pressure medications) and contribute to a 25-point drop in LDL cholesterol. Also, it may contribute to a 30 percent drop in C-reactive protein and significant reductions in other inflammatory markers for “a systemic, cardio-protective effect”—all thanks to this single dietary approach.

    You may be interested in my video on Trans Fat in Meat and Dairy. Did you know that animal products are exempted from the ban? See Banning Trans Fat in Processed Foods but Not Animal Fat.

    For more on amla and what else it can do, check out the related posts below.

    If you missed my previous video on Lp(a), watch Treating High Lp(a)—A Risk Factor for Atherosclerosis. 



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