#1 Best Diet To Clean Your Arteries (Not What You Think)

If you've worried about clogged arteries in your 50s, then you've probably spent a lot of time researching things like ways to lower your cholesterol. One of the problems is this. A Google search brings up a thousand answers. Keto, Mediterranean, plant-based, carnivore on the other end. And each camp is convinced they've got the answer. Each camps pointing to studies which supports their belief that they've got the answer. But what if I told you that cholesterol is not even the problem? There's something else scraping your artery walls that we need to clear out. The truth is there is no single diet that's going to clean your arteries. Instead, it comes down to three specific criteria that anyone can hit. Whether you're a meat eater or a vegetarian. So in this video, I'll show you what those criteria are and why hitting all three of those will heal your arteries and lower your risk of a deadly heart attack. I'm Dr. Ford Brewer, preventive medicine specialist with over 40 years of clinical experience. Criterion number one. The first thing every artery cleaning diet has in common has to do with blood sugar. But it's something that standard annual checkups are just not going to catch. Every time your blood sugar goes up, the lining of your arteries start to take damage. We call that lining the intima or endothelium. These are just fancy words for the inner wall of your blood vessels. They do a lot of special things and they're built specially. But this is all you need to know. It's a lining, it's delicate, and you don't want to damage it because it's so important. There's a specific number that you need to be aware of and that number is 140 milligrams per deciliter. What is that? That's your blood sugar number. Every time your blood sugar crosses that line after a meal and it stays up there, it triggers an inflammation response in your artery wall. And that inflammation is what builds plaque. No, it's not fat. It's not cholesterol by itself. Cholesterol is often just an indicator and sometimes it's the wrong indicator. The repeated blood sugar spikes twice a every day for hour after hour. That's what damages your artery. Let's think about a patient that we'll call Mike. His fasting blood sugar was 94. It's perfectly normal. Almost all docs are gonna say that's great. I would say it's great. His doctor looked at the number and said he was fine. But Mike was eating cereal in the morning and a sandwich at lunch. You know, one of those big hoagie kind of sandwiches with lots of bread. After this meals, these meals, the cereal and the bread, his blood sugar was hitting 170, 180 and sometimes even higher every single day. His fasting number looked clean because blood sugar comes back down overnight. The damage was happening in the hours after the meals and nobody was checking it. Nobody thought to. That's the pattern that I see over and over and over again. Fasting labs are just not gonna show this. You need either a CGM, that's a continuous glucose monitor, small sensor that you wear on your arm that tracks blood sugar all day long and all night. Or another thing you can get is a minimum basic glucometer from any pharmacy and develop the habit of checking about half an hour and then two hours after you eat. The damage isn't happening at your annual checkup. It's happening twice a day, at least, unless you're eating three times a day. Every time a meal sends your blood sugar way over 140. Here's another criterion, another thing to think about in terms of keeping your arteries clean. Keep inflammation low. The second thing every artery cleaning diet has in common is still being overlooked by a lot of doctors and that is an artery cleaning diet keeps inflammation low. It's not a a calm, low-inflammation environment through food quality, nutrients, and through the absence of heavily processed ingredients, especially heavily processed carb-heavy ingredients like grains that keep quietly irritating your blood vessels day after day after day. This is where the standard American diet does the most damage. It's high in refined carbs that add sugar, ultra-processed, low in real food, the vitamins, minerals, and plant compounds that your artery walls actually need to repair themselves almost completely absent. And the research backs this up. There was a large analysis of 22 studies. It's called a meta-analysis. It's one of the most powerful forms of evidence in science. That large analysis of meta-analysis of 22 studies found that people who ate the most ultra-processed food had 17% higher risk of heart disease and 23% higher risk of coronary artery disease compared to those who ate the least of these ultra-processed grain-heavy carbs. These are not rounding errors. 17% and 23%. This is what happens when you run a low-grade inflammation in your body, not day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade. Let me reveal exactly what happened to me. I wasn't eating the standard American diet, but I was eating a lot of bread. You know, in my culture, it's like, let's break bread together. Toast. You know, in my culture, they ate a one of those things, but I did like bread. And looking back, that was enough to contribute to the plaque I found in my own arteries. So keep this in mind. Every meal either turns the inflammation up or it turns it down. Keep the inflammation off. Turn it down. Every meal that turns the inflammation up, that's a problem. Turning it down, that's where you want to be. And most named diets, especially like Mediterranean, plant-based, paleo, these can fail the criteria entirely or they can pass it and do very well. It depends completely on how you execute the diet. So we've gone through a couple of criteria. Number one, not raising your blood sugar. Number two, not causing inflammation. And now, number three. The third criterion is one that most diets never even mention. The diet has to be nutrients and deliver enough protein to protect your muscle. The nutrient part is straightforward. Your artery walls need vitamins, minerals, and plant compounds to repair themselves. Those only come from real food. A dirty keto, mostly bacon and cheese with no vegetables, they can pass the blood sugar criterion and still leave you nutritionally not exactly where you need to be. The same goes for a junk food vegan diet. The label doesn't tell you whether you're actually getting what your arteries need. The protein part is less obvious and it matters more for people like me. I'm 68. Anytime you're in your late 50s or beyond, you really have to worry about maintaining muscle. Muscle isn't just about being strong. It's actually your body's main tool for clearing out blood sugar after meals. It's your best internal safety valve. When you eat, your muscles absorb a large portion of that glucose and store it safely. Lose the muscle, which happens naturally as we age if we're not actively working against it. And your blood sugar control just gets worse. Every meal hits harder. By the way, that's a feedback loop that most diets never mention. Less muscle leads to higher spikes in your sugar. Higher spikes in your sugar damage the arteries more. And the problem continues to spiral out of control as we age if you don't protect that muscle and protect those arteries. So back to the three criteria. Hit all three, you're gonna have a very clean set of arteries. Miss any one of them, and the name on the label is not gonna save you if it says low-carb or if it says keto-friendly or any of that. Here's where it gets interesting. What this looks like in practice. How do you actually do this? What does a diet that hits all three criteria look like on a real plate? And how do you know if what you're eating now really qualifies? Well, start with the one thing that every successful artery diet has in common. Cut out the refined carbs and ultra-processed foods, especially carbs. Now keto does this. Low-carb Mediterranean does this. But again, only if it's low-carb Mediterranean. Whole food plant-based diets can do this. Again, you got to execute though. Not all plant-based diets do it. It needs to be a whole food, and it needs to focus on low carbs. Smart Paleo does this. The standard American diet, it doesn't. You know, it's like a visitor we had on the show once. Robert Lustig said, you can have a very healthy diet whether it's keto, carnivore, lion on one end or vegetarian and vegan on the other. But there's one diet that's just never gonna work, and that is the standard American diet because that's the floor. It piles up a whole lot of fats with a whole lot of highly processed carbs, highly processed carbs that are gonna raise your blood sugar. And meanwhile, the fats that you've eaten, you're not gonna be able to to digest those because these all these carbs have jacked your insulin up, and insulin makes it hard to digest fats. So everything builds, and everything comes on top of that standard American diet. From there, eat real, eat minimally processed food that's actually rich in nutrients, non-starchy vegetables, quality protein, healthy fats. Not because of a rule, but because your artery walls need these nutrients. They need vitamins, minerals, plant compounds to repair themselves. And those only come from one real food. Here's what two meals look like in practice. Both hit all three criteria. First meal, late morning, three whole eggs cooked in butter or ghee, a small portion of liver, just one or two bites, maybe an ounce, and a few sardines or some salmon. That combination gives you omega-3s, B12, vitamin D, iron, and choline in amounts that most supplements can't touch. Then a big salad, spinach, arugula, romaine as the base, and red cabbage, bell pepper, a little carrot, radish, cherry tomatoes, red onions, garlic, olives, and sauerkraut. Top that with an avocado, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds. Dress that with extra virgin olive oil, the kind that makes you cough if you just take a little bit of it. Lemon, herbs, and salt. Now that covers most of the vitamins and minerals you need in a day. With no refined carbs, blood sugar stays flat. Second meal, late afternoon or evening, a big piece of meat or fatty fish, about 7 or 8 ounces of steak, chicken thighs, or salmon, a generous portion of low-carb vegetables roasted in olive oil or butter, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, asparagus. If you didn't hit your protein, add a small piece of cheese or a protein shake. Be careful with the shakes. Don't get those big ones like every morning, especially if you don't know the protein itself. Check your blood sugar after because sometimes they can crank your blood sugar. Bone broth on the side if you want the extra glycine. That's an amino acid that supports tissue repair. Between those two meals, you're in low refined carbs. Blood sugar is going to stay under 140, and you're loaded with nutrients. Now again, if you're a carnivore, and we've got lots of carnivores, lions, other folks that are just really into no plant-based foods. I get it. We've got plenty of folks in our community that are there, and you probably didn't like the salad stuff. But a lot of us are omnivores. I'm gonna, I am an omnivore as well. And the salads are just not gonna hurt you guys. I'm not telling you you have to eat them. I'm just saying don't bang on the guys that do. If you're getting plenty of protein to protect your muscle and your arteries, that's the framework. It can be adapted to a plant-based version with different protein sources. The three criterias stay exactly the same. Verify it's working. Get a glucometer or a CGM, the continuous glucose monitor. Check your blood sugar half an hour and two hours after meals. Get your hemoglobin A1c, your triglycerides, your HDL, and your fasting insulin. If those numbers are moving in the right direction and staying there, the diet is doing its job. No matter what you or anyone else calls it, it's doing what it needs to do. The best diet to clean your arteries already exists. It's any sustainable pattern that hits all three of the criteria. Doesn't jack your blood sugar over 140. It doesn't cause inflammation. And it gives you the protein and the other nutrients that you need. You can verify it's working with your own labs and a glucometer. My team and I have helped thousands of people do exactly what I just described in this video. Now, if you'd like to know how we can personally help you, click the link in the description below or call the number on your screen now to talk to our experts. Now, knowing the diet is one thing. Knowing the single best food for your arteries, the one with the strongest direct evidence for slowing and even reversing plaque, that's a different question. And in the next video, I'll walk you through exactly what the research actually shows, the evidence shows about the best food for cleaning arteries. And remember, growing old is just not for sissies. But it's a lot better, a lot easier with healthy arteries.