These 6 Foods Fight Plaque So Fast Your Heart & Arteries Stay Young

Researchers in Spain took a thousand people who already had heart disease. For seven years, half of them ate one way and the other half ate another. Then they put an ultrasound on the arteries in their neck. In one group, nothing much changed. In the other group, the artery walls got thinner and the plaque got smaller. Today I'm counting down six foods that work on plaque from six different angles. Number one has the strongest evidence of all of them. It's probably already in your kitchen, just maybe not the right version. And there's one number on your blood work that your parents Mostly decided for you. Most people have never tested it. And I'll tell you which one it is at the end here. Now, most people picture plaque like bacon grease in a kitchen drain. That is not how it works. Plaque doesn't sit on the pipe. It grows inside the wall. See, cholesterol rides through your blood on little delivery trucks. The main one is called LDL. Low-density lipoprotein. And every truck carries one tag called APOB. So think of APOB as basically a count of the trucks on the road. The more trucks and the more they're out there, the more that could slip into the wall. And if the wall is already being irritated by things like high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high insulin, smoking, or inflammation, the trucks now get stuck and they oxidize. Your immune system comes in to clean them up, but the cleanup crew dies right there. Now, what happens when you get a splinter? Your body swells around it and it walls it off. You've seen that before. Plaque is what your body walls off what it couldn't clear. Later, it lays down calcium, like scar tissue. And many heart attacks come from a soft, inflamed plaque that cracks, not the biggest one. Look, this is personal for me. Me, my father. suffered a massive stroke and he ended up dying nine months after, this is in 2014, due to the complications of his diabetes. Which by the way, if you carry diabetes, you have two to four times the risk of developing heart disease. And no, there's no food that's like Drano for your arteries. You don't really fight plaque, but you can change the condition it grows in. So, let's start with those six foods. Flax seeds. Specifically ground flax seeds. This helps with less pressure in the pipe. Flax seeds have almost no sugar, barely any glucose or insulin spike. Every heartbeat pushes on your artery wall. If you run that pressure high for years and the wall gets damaged, then the damaged walls are where the trucks get stuck. Flax bring a plant-based omega-3 option, this gel-forming fiber, and compounds called lignans. And they helped to work on that pressure. In a Canadian trial, people with blocked leg arteries, most of them were already on blood pressure medication, they ate about three tablespoons of milled flax a day, baked into food. After six months, their top number was about 10 points lower than the placebo group, and about 15% lower in the ones who started out really high. Now this is one trial in one group, but that drop is a prescription size. Dropping blood pressure. Now we have to talk about the anti-nutrients here. Raw flax can contain small amounts of anti-nutrients. Now your body clears them in normal doses and heat can break a lot of it down. I think two tablespoons of raw flaxseed is fine, at least for me. But anything more than that, I would. Bake a little bit or simmer it. I recommend buying it ground, organic, and keep it in the fridge and let it replace the boxed cereal. The fifth food is arugula. Also, other leafy greens and beets. What do all of these have in common? They're packed with nitrates, which your body turns into nitric oxide, the signal that tells your arteries to open up, to relax. It's called vasodilation. But you need the bacteria On your tongue, to help convert it first. In a London study, people with high blood pressure, half already on medication, drank a glass of beetroot juice every day for four weeks, dropped about eight points, and their blood vessels opened up about 20% better. The placebo was the same juice with the nitrate removed, and it had no effect. Then the same group had healthy people use a strong antiseptic mouthwash twice a day for a week. Their blood pressure went up. You see, if you kill the bacteria, you lose. The conversion. If your dentist has prescribed an antiseptic mouthwash or you've been taking an antiseptic mouthwash, that is bad news. Now, what about the anti-nutrients, the oxalates in these green leafy vegetables? The spinach, the Swiss chard, the beet greens. Now, those are loaded with things like oxalates. More than a hundred times what something like kale has. And beets even run high in them too. Oxalates bind calcium. And in the wrong person, they could build kidney stones. So that's why arugula is my pick on this list. It's one of the richest nitrate foods there is. And it's low in anti-nutrients, including oxalates. So for me, it's two big handfuls of arugula pretty much every day. Sometimes I'll have a few roasted beets, but not too much. The fourth food here is small fatty fish that's wild-caught. I'll give you a list of my favorite, but the reason why they're on this list is because of their EPA and DHA omega-3 content. These could help lower inflammation, help to lower triglycerides, and even help to lower insulin. Now, a lot of these claims get exaggerated online. The big 20-30% triglyceride drop came from prescription doses of EPA and DHA fish oil for 4 grams a day. I would personally never do that. Having some small fatty fish a few times a week, like with dinner, won't do that. But having the fish is long-term protection. So when it comes to the fish, I want you to think of the SMASH acronym. This is a good thing to write down and maybe teach to a friend. I'll put it on the screen for you. Take a screenshot or write it down, but always remember the SMASH acronym and everything on this list should be wild caught fish. So here's the SMASH acronym. We have salmon, mackerel, anchovies, sardines, and herring. Look, a $2 can of sardines and olive oil has close to a gram of these healthy omega-3 fats. So I would swap out the deli meat and the hot dogs with this. Food number three, walnuts. In a two-year trial, 708 adults ages 63 to 79 ate a handful of walnuts a day. Their LDL dropped and the small dense particles that slip into the wall most easily fell by 6%. Now I know it's modest, but it came from a snack and it lasted two years. So I would replace, don't add, an ounce of Walnuts which is 14 halves is only about 185 calories. So swap the chips for the walnuts. I would not recommend dry roasted. I would have organic and raw and that goes for all nuts by the way It's a different conversation we'll talk about in a different video. Number two on my list are berries. Now this surprises people a lot. How are berries ranked higher than fish and nuts? Well here's why. Their deep blue and red pigments help your artery lining make that nitric oxide. In a six month trial, adults with metabolic syndrome had the equivalent of about a cup a day of blueberries. Their vessels opened better. Their arteries got less stiff. And HDL. Rose and the people who are not taking a statin. Half a cup didn't do it. It was a full cup a day. Frozen blueberries work and it probably costs less for most people. You can mix in strawberries and blackberries. Those are higher in anti-nutrients. Blueberries are lower in them. And make sure you're eating the fruit. You're not drinking the juice. Fiber in it is the brakes and juice is sugar without the brakes. This brings me to the number one food on this list. You ready for it? First of all, I've seen the greatest rock band in the world, The Killers, 45 times in concert. That is a true story. And they always save the song that everybody came for until late in the set. It's usually Mr. Brightside or When You Were Young. That's what I'm doing in today's video. I'm saving the best in my set for last, and that's this food right here. Now, but first, full transparency. Today's video sponsor does make the food I'm putting at number one. It's not number one because of them. Let me show you the research and what to look for, and then you can decide. So the number one food here is extra virgin. Olive oil. Remember the study I opened up with where artery walls got thinner? The main fat in that group's diet was extra virgin olive oil. Then there's the PREDIMED study. More than 7,400 people, ages 55 to 80, at high risk but without heart disease. One group got about a liter of extra virgin olive oil per week. Over roughly five years, they had about 30% fewer heart attacks, strokes and heart disease deaths combined compared to a group told to cut the fat. Now to be honest about that number, in real terms it was about 3.8% of people versus 4.4%. And after randomization problems, the trial was re-analyzed in 2018. The result held. So why extra virgin? It's basically fresh pressed olive juice. Light or pure olive oil is refined, which actually strips out the polyphenols. And those polyphenols can help to protect your LDL from oxidizing. Oxidized LDL is the bad stuff that gets lodged into those artery walls. Now the peppery sting that you should get in the back of your throat from a good olive oil, that comes from a compound called oleocanthal. Scientists notice it because it stings the throat the same way liquid ibuprofen does. If your olive oil does not do that, if it tastes like nothing, if it goes down smooth, To me, that's a huge red flag. So when you're shopping for olive oil, number one, shop for a harvest date, not just a best buy date. Pick a bottle that's glass and dark, never clear plastic, and make sure it's single origin, not a mix of different destinations, different origins. That checklist is exactly why I use the Fresh Pressed Olive Oil Club. They pick the olives early while they're young and green. So it's called Early Harvest Pressing. Now, they get less yield that way, but it's higher quality for us. And then they fly the oil fresh right after harvest. The harvest date is printed on every single bottle. And every oil is lab certified to be 100% extra virgin. And I looked at their oleocanthal and polyphenol levels, and they've actually have given me the reports, and they're higher than anything I've seen before with olive oil. So for me, this shows up three bottles every quarter at my front door. So the oil in my kitchen is always fresh. And I could cancel this membership anytime. So if you want this special deal, the Fresh Press Olive Oil Club is giving you an entire free bottle. When you get two bottles, you get a third one completely free. To take advantage of this offer, click the link right below this video or scan the QR code on the screen right now. It'll take you to the page. Now I have to say, They don't produce super large batches. These are small harvest batches. So if this offer is gone by the time you see it, that's too bad. You have to wait until they open up the next batch. But hopefully you see this in time. Go to the link down below, get two bottles and get a third bottle completely free. Now here's how I would use this. I would do about two to four tablespoons a day. The PREDIMED study aimed for four. You can cook with a high-quality olive oil like this, although I wouldn't recommend it. I would have it more for salad dressings and dips. Sometimes I put it in my coffee. Sometimes I'll take a shot of it during fasting. It doesn't break a fast. However you want to do it, make a healthy salad dressing with vinegar and lemon. And some sea salt and pepper. But for sure, replace inflammatory seed oil dressing, vegetable oil dressing with it. And make sure you store it away from the stove and you finish an open bottle within a couple of months. Now, the numbers to take to your doctor. Number one, blood pressure. Look, get an at-home cuff. They're not that expensive. Under 120 over 80 consistently is the goal. Then we have LDL. Total LDL, not really an important marker. But oxidized LDL is. And you want that under the... The reference range, triglycerides I want under 90, HDL I want over 60, and I want my fasting insulin under 7, my fasting glucose under 90, and my A1c under 5.2%. And here's the other one I promised, LP little a. Okay, it's mostly genetic. About one in five people have it high, and food barely moves it for a lot of people. European guidelines say that every adult should test it. At least once. If you have heart disease in your family, I would test it every year. Now here are the six ingredients you learned in two meals. So breakfast, let's say it's Greek yogurt with a cup of organic blueberries, some walnuts, two tablespoons of ground flax, or eggs with blueberries on the side. Drizzle some of that extra virgin olive oil on top. Dinner, salmon or sardines over arugula and roasted beets with extra virgin olive oil and lemon as the dressing. That's all six in two meals. It's not a diet. It's a message to your body. Every bite tells your body you're nourished. Look, I'm on a mission to help billions of people enter their second prime of life. I want you to be a prime human. Comment down below, Ben, I am a prime human. That is the exact topic of my new book coming out in 2027. If this was valuable to you, share it with somebody you know, somebody you love. Hit the like button, subscribe to the channel. We have a lot of great content coming out soon. And speaking of which, if you enjoyed this lesson, I put a video on a simple Ozempic alternative that cost about $2 and it actually works pretty effectively. Here's a clip from that video. Then click the video on the screen coming up in a few seconds and I'll see you in the next video. I kept thinking. There's no way something this simple does what these studies are claiming and the numbers stopped me cold. It cuts cravings. It keeps you full for hours longer than carbs and fat. It stabilizes your blood sugar between meals. It protects the one thing that determines whether your metabolism works in your 40s, 50s, and 60s.