The little-known diet that can slash your risk of heart disease
Experts say the benefits of the heart-healthy "portfolio" diet are exponential—from lowering your cholesterol to reducing your risk of dying from cancer.
A secret weapon that can lower cholesterol has been flying under the radar for more than 20 years. It’s called the portfolio diet—and it has been gaining a resurgence of interest, thanks to rising interest in plant-based eating and mounting evidence regarding its health benefits.
Developed in the early 2000s by David Jenkins, a professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Toronto, and his colleagues, the portfolio diet emphasizes nuts and seeds, plant proteins, fruits and vegetables, and heart-healthy oils.
The diet is essentially a portfolio of foods that have been scientifically proven to lower cholesterol, explains Laura Chiavaroli, an assistant professor in the department of nutritional sciences at the University of Toronto who trained with Jenkins. “Dr. Jenkins developed it because he wanted to see if foods in the diet have an additive effect on cholesterol reduction when they’re consumed together.
The answer is a resounding yes.
The first evidence came from a small study by Jenkins and his team from 2003, which found that people with elevated cholesterol who followed the portfolio diet had a 35 percent reduction in their low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol after four weeks. (High levels of LDL are a major risk factor for heart disease.) Another 2003 study by that team found that the portfolio diet reduced LDL cholesterol almost as effectively as a statin medication after a month.
More recently, a study of 14,835 adults, published in a 2025 issue of BMC Medicine found that those with greater adherence to the portfolio diet had a 16 percent lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease and a 14 percent reduced risk of dying prematurely from any cause over a 22-year period. This builds upon a 2018 meta-analysis of seven studies involving 439 participants with high cholesterol showing that the portfolio diet significantly lowered LDL cholesterol, apolipoprotein B, total cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, and even a person’s 10-year risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
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People with high LDL cholesterol are most likely to benefit from the diet—"It can be like an add-on therapy to cholesterol medication,” says Andrea Glenn, a registered dietitian and an assistant professor of nutrition at New York University. But, she adds, “everybody could benefit from adding some parts of the portfolio diet.”
What is the portfolio diet?
There are five pillars of the portfolio diet: nuts and seeds (including nut butters), plant proteins (soy milk, tofu, tempeh, legumes, and veggie burgers), viscous fiber (oats, barley, apples, berries, persimmons, okra, eggplant, chia seeds, and psyllium husk supplements), plant sterols (found in nuts, soybeans, peas, canola oil, and supplements or fortified foods such as margarines, juices, or yogurts), and monounsaturated fats (such as extra virgin olive oil, canola oil, sunflower and safflower oils, and avocados).
“It got its name because it’s kind of like a business portfolio—you can pick and choose the components you like,” explains Andrea Glenn, a registered dietitian and an assistant professor of nutrition at New York University.
The diet specifies daily targets for how much of each to consume: 50 grams of plant proteins, 45 grams of nuts and seeds, 45 grams of heart-healthy oils, 20 grams of viscous (sticky) fiber, and 2 grams of plant sterols.
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No foods are taboo on the portfolio diet, but it is intended to be primarily plant-based. “It doesn’t really forbid foods—it just says include these foods every day, which helps to displace other foods,” says Keith Ayoob, a dietitian in New York City and an associate professor emeritus of pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Indeed, the focus is more on what to add to your meals than what to eliminate.
Many experts recommend starting with small changes and building from there. “Think about what you’re eating now and what you can change,” advises Glenn. Maybe you could switch from eating rice to eating barley, or from using butter to using heart-healthy oils in your cooking. And you should increase your fiber intake slowly, in order to minimize gas and bloating and make it easier to adjust to the diet, she adds.
“The part that may be the most challenging for people is the recommended 50 grams of plant protein, including soy protein, daily,” says Ayoob. “That’s a lot, even for people who like soy. One way to dip your toes into the soy-protein world if you aren’t a tofu person is to try soy nuts—they’re crunchy like nuts but without the beany taste of many soy foods.”
While the portfolio diet doesn’t have a great deal of flexibility, there is some, which is why different people can make it work for them. Whether people consume only plant proteins or a combination of plant and animal proteins, “it is possible to eat a heart-healthy diet either way,” says Toby Amidor, a registered dietitian and owner of Toby Amidor Nutrition, based in New York.
Beneficial ripple effects
While it was created to reduce harmful LDL cholesterol, the health benefits of the portfolio diet are wide-ranging.
“With the portfolio diet, we see benefits across cardiovascular disease risk factors such as inflammation, blood pressure, and glycemic control,” Chiavaroli says. In fact, a study in a 2024 issue of the journal Nutrients found that when people with type 2 diabetes adopted the portfolio diet (which happens to be rich in low glycemic index foods), their hemoglobin A1c levels (a measure of average blood sugar) declined significantly over the course of six months.
A 2021 study found that men who adhered closely to the portfolio diet had a 28 percent lower risk of dying prematurely or dying of cancer over a 10-year follow-up period.
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Following at least some of the principles could help anyone improve their eating habits. After all, most people would benefit from eating more fruits, vegetables, and legumes, Ayoob notes. Approximately 90 percent of people in the U.S. eat too few vegetables, and 80 percent don’t eat enough fruit, according to research by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In fact, according to research published in a 2023 issue of Circulation, upping your vegetable intake by following a plant-based diet can dramatically reduce your risk of heart disease. Using data from three major studies, researchers tracked the eating habits and health status of 210,240 U.S. adults for 30 years. Those who ate more plant protein, legumes, nuts, seeds, foods rich in viscous fiber, plant sterols, and monounsaturated fats had a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, and stroke.
Even a partial commitment goes a long way
But you don’t have to obsess over hitting all the targets in the portfolio diet.
“It’s not an all-or-nothing type of diet,” Chiavaroli says. “You can adopt parts of it that fit with your values and preferences and build from there. Even with a 50 percent adherence to the diet, you can still get clinically meaningful reduction in LDL cholesterol. This is a lifestyle you’re trying to adopt as opposed to a short-term diet.”
In fact, research suggests that a 50 percent adherence rate to the portfolio diet in young adulthood may delay the increase in cardiovascular disease risk later in life by six years.
“It’s a really good diet,” says Ayoob. Although it may be a little restrictive by specifying how much of each type of food you need to eat, that doesn’t mean you have to follow it that way. “Treats are an enjoyable part of life and can even help you stay with an eating style over the long term.”
In fact, he adds, “there are a lot of ways to use the diet to improve heart health. Think of the components of the portfolio diet as a heart-healthy eating style—and choose as many of its components that realistically fit into your life.”
