The Diet That Lowers Cholesterol Like a Statin | Dr Andrea Glenn

The Proof with Simon Hill

Simon Hill

Nutrition, Education, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness

4.9 • 3.1K Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2026

⏱️ 95 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Plant-based nutrition has rarely been more contested. Seed oils are vilified, butter is celebrated, protein is treated as a pure quantity question, and nutrition epidemiology is routinely dismissed by people who have never read one of its papers. In this episode, I sit down with Dr Andrea Glenn, an Assistant Professor at NYU and Visiting Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, to look at what the strongest evidence actually shows. We cover the recent plant-versus-animal protein data from the Nurses' Health Studies and Health Professionals Follow-up Study, the Portfolio Diet, the new CHEAP trial, the JAMA Internal Medicine butter and plant oil paper, and the new 2026 AHA dietary guidance. What we cover: The plant-to-animal protein ratio and its association with cardiovascular and coronary heart disease risk The Portfolio Diet, what it contains, and how its LDL-lowering effects compare to a low-dose statin Butter, beef tallow, tropical oils, and what the latest mortality data show Why "low-carb" is not one diet, and why food sources matter as much as the macronutrient breakdown A grounded defence of nutrition epidemiology and the role of food frequency questionnaires Practical takeaways for how to eat in line with the new AHA guidance This is the conversation I wanted to have for anyone tired of nutrition by hashtag. If it lands, a quick rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify makes a real difference. To follow more of Dr Andrea Glenn's work, find her on Instagram at instagram.com/andrea.glenn.rd, on X at x.com/andreaglennrd, and on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/andrea-glennrd. Intro (00:00) Plant vs Animal Protein Ratio and Heart Disease (01:17) Does Total Protein Amount Also Affect CVD Risk? (05:33) Why Nutrition Epidemiology Critics Often Get It Wrong (11:00) Where Epidemiology Fits in the Evidence Hierarchy (17:28) Sensitivity Analyses: How Scientists Test Their Results (22:16) What It's Like Doing Science at Harvard (28:55) The Portfolio Diet: Origins and the Science Behind It (32:21) The CHEAP Trial: Testing Portfolio Diet Long-Term (41:03) Portfolio Diet in Cohort Studies: What the Data Shows (50:24) Unsaturated Fats: Are They Inherently Heart-Protective? (56:16) Phytosterol Supplements: LDL Benefits vs Safety Questions (01:00:06) Butter vs Plant Oils: What Mortality Data Actually Shows (01:06:57) Plant vs Animal MUFAs and Type 2 Diabetes Risk (01:12:11) Low-Carb Diet Quality and Diabetes Risk: New Data (01:15:37) 2026 AHA Dietary Guidelines: Key Differences Explained (01:20:23) Portfolio Diet's Potential to Reduce Disease Burden (01:26:35) This episode is brought to you by: 38TERA Consider 38TERA's DMN prebiotic supplement a daily multivitamin for your gut. Formulated by yours truly and gastroenterologist Dr Will Bulsiewicz. Use code THEPROOF for a discount at checkout. 38Tera ships to the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. LMNT Stay hydrated with LMNT. Get a free Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular drink mix flavours with any purchase at DrinkLMNT.com/SIMON Find your favourite LMNT flavour, or share with a friend. And if you don’t like it? Full refund, no questions asked. LMNT ships to the U.S. and Canada, with sparkling flavors available only in the contiguous U.S. Shopify Shopify, the world's leading e-commerce platform, helps you turn browsers into buyers with the internet’s best-converting check out–up to 36% better compared to other leading e-commerce platforms. To boost your conversion rate, and grow your business, sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial at shopify.com/proof. Momentous My go-to supplement brand for protein and creatine is Momentous. Use code THEPROOF for up to 35% off your first order at livemomentous.com. Momentous ships to many countries worldwide depending on local import regulations. Eight Sleep Upgrade your sleep with the Pod 5 Ultra by Eight Sleep. Clinically validated to deliver up to 1 extra hour of quality sleep per night through temperature control and biometric tracking. Use code THEPROOF for $350 off at eightsleep.com/theproof. Try it risk-free for 30 days, with worldwide shipping. Eight Sleep ships to the U.S. (excluding Alaska, Hawaii, and territories), Canada, Mexico, most of the EU, the U.K., Australia, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Switzerland. Simon Hill, MSc, BSc (Hons) Creator of theproof.com Host of The Proof with Simon Hill Author of The Proof is in the Plants Subscribe & Connect: YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Instagram: @simonhill Twitter: @theproof Facebook: The Proof with Simon Hill

Transcript

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0:00.0	What if a lot of what you've learned about nutrition and food on Huberman Lab, on Peter
0:06.5	Atier's Drive, on Lane Norton's podcast, and across many of the loudest voices online,
0:12.2	was built on a misunderstanding of nutrition science. That's the question that we get into today
0:18.4	with Dr. Andrea Glenn of Harvard, T.H. Chan School of
0:22.4	Public Health, one of the most thoughtful young nutrition scientists working anywhere in the world.
0:29.1	What we eat affects whether we get heart disease, whether we get diabetes, our risk of cancer,
0:35.1	how long we live. The stakes couldn't be higher, and the conversation online has never been more confused.
0:42.9	I hope you enjoy this episode.
0:44.8	Let's get into it.
0:50.4	On the drive here, I was thinking of the kind of breadth of everything that we're going to cover
0:55.7	from the specifics of the portfolio diet and your work on that with your colleagues
1:00.9	and some of the new epidemiology studies have come out that are interesting, this kind of meta
1:07.2	discussion around epidemiology. And I was thinking about where do we start?
1:12.5	That's like an interesting place as an on-ramp to go from.
1:15.9	And I kept coming back to the study you were involved in that was published last year on protein.
1:23.3	And I found that study to be very interesting.
1:27.1	I know that we exchanged some emails at the time, and I've spoken about it a couple of times
1:32.3	on this show at least with Dr. Willard and Dr. Nagra.
1:36.4	But I've never had you on the show to go through it in detail.
1:40.7	And what's always kind of interested me about that study is that as you know protein
1:44.5	right now is trendier than ever and a lot of the major podcasts like the human lab or peter
1:52.5	a tis show or gabriel lyon they are a very protein focus protein-centric kind of messaging
	...

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