Transcription
The number one meal to unclog your arteries. This is what I ate. Not a medical study, not a theory. I [music] ate this meal day after day, and I reversed 30 years of plaque damage in just 3 months. I had the imaging to prove it. 1.8 mm, 1.6 mm thickness in my carotid plaque walls, visible plaque around 20%. 3 months later on this diet, that thickness reduced by 50% to 0.84 mm. >> [music] >> 1.8 mm like an 85-year-old. I'm 55. I had 20% plaque. No more plaque, as you can see.
My name is Dr. Kevin Ham. I'm a physician. I grew up in East Vancouver, Canada. My father arrived with just $100, which he borrowed. [music] At 14, I got seriously ill. I lay in a hospital bed. I had an autoimmune disease, and I made a vow. If I live, I will become a doctor. I will understand disease. I will not be helpless, and I [music] will help people also not be helpless.
I kept that vow. Went to medical school UBC. I went to residency at University of Western Ontario, board certified. Then, 2000, I left clinical medicine and I went off to be a serial entrepreneur. That's another story. Then, at 55 years old, while cycling 7,000 km a year, feeling like I was in the best shape of my life, a CT scan report came in by email. I opened it up on my phone. It showed a diagram of all my coronary arteries. Every branch, every blockage, everywhere. As worse as 77% the diagonal branch off the widowmaker. Another artery 55%, another one at 45%, 29%, [music] 28%, 21%, and the list goes on. Multi-vessel plaque in all my coronary arteries. Already had it in my carotids. I thought my heart was the best part of me.
So, I went back to the medical literature. Every imaging trial, every plaque reversal study, drugs, supplements, diet, lifestyle ever published, every meta-analysis, and I built the meal. The number one meal to unclog your arteries. I unclogged my arteries and my carotids. Before the meal, you need to understand what plaque actually wants. Because most people ask the wrong question. What food unclogs plaque? That's the wrong question. Plaque is not a clog you flush with a miracle superfood. It is a biology problem. Plaque needs three things to grow. One, an injured artery wall. Two, ApoB lipoprotein particles crashing into that wall through that damaged wall. And three, inflammation, which creates and feeds the fire to make plaque. So, the right question is: what meal shifts the biology away from plaque growth?
They expect salmon or olive oil or some exotic superfood. But, simply a green salad. Not once a day, six times a day. Every meal and in between. A handful of greens with balsamic vinegar, fresh lemon juice. You can even put the lemon inside there, but no oil, not even olive oil. That's it. This is the anchor habit. Greens drive nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is almost as wonderful as oxygen that you breathe. Nitric oxide is a molecule that relaxes your arterial walls, causes dilation, expansion for more blood flow. Balsamic and lemon keep the dressing completely fat-free, which inhibits nitric oxide up the endothelium. Balsamic also brings out more nitric oxide through the greens. [music]
Now, here's a full meal. Start with steel-cut oatmeal, 1 Tbsp of ground flaxseed, 1 Tbsp of chia. [music] Stir them in. You can put some berries in: strawberries, blueberries, blackberries. You can put some greens in if you want, which we might think is odd at the beginning, but you get quite used to it. You can add 1 cup of lentils in there for fiber, [music] protein. They also bind cholesterol bile acid. The viscosity in the gut traps cholesterol before it hits the blood. Cool studies show that regular pulse intake of [music] the greens and the beans, they drop LDL up to 10 mg per deciliter. My LDL was 168. 5 weeks [music] later, it was just cut in half by 84. By the 12th week, 3 months in, it was 61. My ApoB was 45. [music] Plaque reversal territory. In 12 weeks, no medication, just food. Simple whole food plant-based, no oils, no nuts, no avocados, no coconut.
You can add a half to a whole red grapefruit. Caution: not if you're on statins. The red grapefruit acts like statins, so it increases [music] the concentration of your statins and the power of that. In 30 days, it can drop your LDL cholesterol uh 10 to 20%. Has flavonoids, has antioxidants, has pectin for cholesterol binding. Next superfood is 50 to 100 mils of pomegranate juice. This is wonderful. It's been proven. It's been shown scientifically in studies to reduce the thickness of the carotid vessels uh up to 30% in a year. They have polyphenols, antioxidants, and they reduce the oxidation and the inflammation. They also the carrying capacity of the good cholesterol [music] HDL, which reverses plaque.
You can also add another proven food, natto. 1 to 3 Tbsp of natto. It's a wonderful food because it has vitamin K2. Vitamin K2 takes calcium out of the arteries and puts it in the bones and teeth. Uh it's a fermented soybean. It's very sticky. Sticky stuff is nattokinase. Nattokinase digests fibrin, which is the scaffolding of the plaque. So, I use it as food for vitamin K2 and nattokinase. I supplement with nattokinase. You have to be careful if you're on a blood thinner with the supplements. You can have one or two slices of organic sourdough bread. Fermentation matters cuz the glucose is much lower. Has to be whole grain sourdough. Real sourdough only.
This is the number one meal to unclog your arteries. This meal doesn't work because of one ingredient. It works because it stacks mechanisms that reverse plaque. The green salad six times a day floods your system with nitrates which become nitric oxide, causes arterial relaxation, heals the endothelium. The endothelium can produce its own nitric oxide further enhancing this cycle. It lowers the blood pressure. Heals the inflammatory environment, also starts to remove the plaque, to remove the inflammation and oxidized cells in the plaque. The oatmeal and lentils trap cholesterol in the gut before ever enters the blood, thereby lowering the cholesterol, lowering the possibility of more plaque. The grapefruit and pomegranate cut oxidative stress. Pomegranate helps in the reversal of cholesterol out of the plaque back to the liver out the intestines. Oxidative stress is the enemy of healthy endothelium. The flax and the chia seeds bring omega-3s which make the cell walls stable in your blood vessels. Without saturated fat, they also lower LDL cholesterol. They also have a high amount of fiber. Then the natto adds vitamin K2 which directs calcium away from the arteries and towards the bones. It also has a special enzyme I spoke about, nattokinase, that dissolves the scaffolding of the plaque. Every meal is a signal. Your arteries are listening. 30 years of biology, arterial plaque thickness reversed in just 3 months.
My father arrived in this country with nothing. He taught me that the only thing you truly own is your biology and your health. No single meal dissolves plaque overnight. That is [music] not the promise. This meal does not work once. It works when it becomes your default habit. Meal by meal, day by day, month by month. That is how your biology shifts. Your inflammation becomes non-inflammation, your plaque becomes non-plaque. I think about what I would give to know this 10 years earlier, 20 years earlier. The reversal happens faster when the plaque is younger and there's less of it. Earlier is easier. Now is better than waiting.
So, here's what I need you to do. Start with a green salad today, at your next meal, and the one after that. Six times a day. Balsamic, lemon, no oil, no excuses. Build the rest of the meal around it. Oatmeal, steel-cut, lentils, grapefruit, pomegranate, natto, sourdough. Not as a one-time thing, as your default. And then send this video to someone you love. Person in their 40s or 50s or 60s who thinks that they're safe because they work out. The parent who eats well but has never asked about ApoB or CT calcium heart scan. The friend who feels fine. Feeling fine is not enough. Not anymore. These videos save lives. Tag me, like, subscribe, and ask your questions below. Click one of these videos and share it with someone you love. Together, we will save lives. For my up-to-date learnings and more, visit me at ham.com.