The Mediterranean diet can take a back seat as the nation’s preeminent organization dedicated to improving heart health endorses the lesser-known “portfolio diet.”
Like diversifying a stock portfolio with differing investments, the “portfolio diet” incorporates several healthy dietary patterns.
The diet was invented by Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health researchers and comprises a range of cholesterol-lowering foods.
It is less well-known than other popular diets, including the DASH diet or the Mediterranean diet, but shares many similarities.
For example, followers are encouraged to swap in proteins that are plant-based instead of red meat and eat plenty of complex fibrous foods like oatmeal, along with healthy fats like nuts. However, the portfolio diet is more plant-forward and discourages protein from animals more than other dietary patterns.
Add more of these foods to your “Daily Portfolio”
Vegetables: Brussels sprouts, okra, turnips, broccoli, eggplant
Fruits: Apples, avocados, pears, bananas, oranges, peaches, kiwi
Nuts: Walnuts, cashews, almonds, pistachios
Whole grains: Quinoa, barley, oats, brown rice
Seeds: Sunflower seeds, flaxseed, chia seeds
Soy protein: Soy milk, tofu, tempeh, soy veggie burgers, soy cold cuts
Legumes: Kidney beans, black beans, chickpeas, lentils, lima beans
Healthy fats: Vegetable oils enriched with plant sterols, margarine
Rid these foods from your diet
Sugar: Honey, table sugar, brown sugar, maple syrup
Processed foods: Fried foods, chips, pretzels, convenience meals, processed meats, French fries
Beverages: Sweet tea, soda, energy drinks, sports drinks
Refined carbs: White rice, white pasta, white bread, tortillas
Sweets: Cake cookies, candies, baked goods
“We want people to look at the combinations of foods — in real diets for real people in the real world — that will carry off, as in the financial world, a range of benefits weighted against reducing a range of risks,” said creator of the Portfolio diet, Dr. David J.A. Jenkins.
The Portfolio Diet isn’t designed for weight loss. Instead, its primary goal is heart health. People who followed the diet for 30 years had a 14 percent lower risk of strokes and coronary heart disease compared to people who followed a standard diet.
The researchers at Harvard published their findings in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation and signaled the preeminent heart health organization endorses the diet plan as a way to prevent cardiovascular disorders.
Nutrition expert at Harvard and co-author of the study, Dr. Andrea Glenn, said, “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.”
Prior research has shown following the Portfolio Diet, rich in foods that lower cholesterol, is about as effective as medication. However, little has been known until now about the diet’s long-term benefits.
The team conducted its research on over 210,000 healthcare professionals enrolled in three different nationally representative studies into the risk factors for severe diseases.
Food frequency questionnaires were issued, asking study subjects to look at a narrow checklist of foods and beverages with a frequency response section for subjects to report how often each item was consumed.
Participants filled out questionnaires at the beginning of the study and every four years after that for 30 years.
The food frequency questionnaire was used to develop a Portfolio Diet Score (PDS), which gives points for eating higher amounts of approved foods and subtracts points for consuming foods that impact cholesterol levels negatively, like trans or saturated fats.
Specifically, the goal is to lower LDL cholesterol, as this type of “bad” cholesterol is strongly linked to the risk of heart disease.
Researchers said, “This dietary pattern also aligns with the American Heart Association guidelines promoting the consumption of whole grains, fruits and vegetables, healthy plant-based proteins, minimally processed foods, and healthy unsaturated plant oils.”
During the 30-year-long follow-up, researchers recorded 16,917 cases of cardiovascular disease, including 6,473 strokes and 10,666 cases of coronary heart disease.
Individuals who scored highest on the PDS had a 14 percent lower risk of developing stroke and heart disease.
The BEST diet for weight loss
For every 25-percentile increase in the PDS, the risk of total cardiovascular disease, including stroke and coronary heart disease, declined by eight percent.
Using blood plasma samples to measure the effects, researchers discovered that the diet was linked with lower levels of inflammation in the body. Inflammation promotes the buildup of harmful plaques made up of LDL cholesterol in the arteries, causing them to narrow and block normal blood flow. This dramatically raises one’s risk of experiencing a stroke or heart attack.
The study didn’t focus on weight loss, often the goal when people embark on another diet like the Mediterranean, DASH, or Keto.
Penn State University nutrition expert Dr. Kristina Petersen, who co-authored last spring’s AHA statement that scored ten popular diets for heart-health benefits, said, “We’re always looking at ways to reduce the risk of heart disease, and one effective way to do that is to lower blood cholesterol levels, particularly LDL cholesterol.”
Petersen said the only reason the Portfolio Diet wasn’t included in the list is because “it’s not particularly common.”
“It’s not an all-or-nothing approach. You can take your own diet and, make a few small changes and see cardiovascular benefits. You also do not have to follow it as a strict vegan or vegetarian diet to see benefits, but the more of the foods (from the Portfolio Diet) that you eat, the greater your heart disease risk protection, as we saw in the current study. We need to get the word out,” continued Petersen.
