Heart Health Studies on Plant-Based Meats with Matthew Nagra, N.D.

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]So, all around, soy seems to be quite a good uh option. I'm just going to take a quick sip before I move on.

[00:00:08]Okay, so now we're back to the plant-based meats. Um, and heart health topic. Um, and I'm not going to go over every trial. Um, at the time that we published our review, there were six that were we thought were relevant. Uh, now there's been a few more. So, you know, not going to spend a ton of time going through every one, but there are a couple that I'm going to highlight that I think have um uh some sort of unique aspects uh that can help shed light on this topic. So, this is arguably the most famous of the topics or of these studies on this topic. Um and this was called the swap meat trial uh done by researchers at Stanford including Chris Gardner. Um and they had a a uh they had 36 participants and the trial was 16 weeks long. Now it was a crossover trial meaning that for 8 weeks the participants consumed one food and then for the other eight weeks they were given the opposite food. So um in the plant-based phase they were given Beyond Meat products and these were the older less healthy versions as well. Um but things like the Beyond Burgers, sausages, I think they had like vegan chicken nuggets or something. There's a list of them. Um, and then in the animal phase, they were given organic and grass-fed meat products. So, not even just your regular conventional meats.

[00:01:20]They were given the ones that some people view um as healthier. I wouldn't say there's a big difference, but but uh at least from the optics viewpoint, some people believe they are. Um, and then participants were instructed to consume at least two servings of either or per day. So, if they're in the Beyond Meat phase, at least two servings of the Beyond Meat products per day. If they're in the meat phase, at least two servings of the meats per day.

[00:01:45]and they found that in the plant-based group there was a rejection in TMAO. Uh this is a marker that has been associated with cardiovascular disease.

[00:01:53]I'd say there's some debate around whether it's uh causally associated. Um I tend to to view that it's probably not based on the available data, but it it is associated with risk anyway. Um there was a little bit of a reduction in weight about 1 kilogram, but keep in mind that this was a very small change in diet. all they were doing was changing out meat for Beyond Meat and they still lost a bit of weight which is if anything impressive um for LDL cholesterol levels uh went down by about 11 points 10.8 points that is absolutely meaningful that is clinically relevant that could lower your risk of cardiovascular disease by simply swapping out meat for Beyond Meat products again would it be great if people would switch meat for lentils or something? Sure. But a lot of people won't do that. If from a public health perspective, if people swapped out just the meat for the plant-based meats, um at least these ones, uh we could likely see some significant improvements in risk. And then there were no significant differences in blood pressure, which I wanted to highlight because plant-based meats are typically quite high in sodium.

[00:02:55]Now we see that actually at the end of the day there weren't significant differences in sodium intake potentially because of salt that is added to to meat products whether for preservation or for flavoring. Um fiber intake uh was not significantly different between the plant phase and animal phase although it it tended to be a bit higher in the plant phase but not not statistically significant. Um daily protein intake almost identical but the saturated fat intake went down. Um so those in the plant-based phase consumed on average 26 grams of saturated fat per day whereas those in the animal phase um consumed an average of 33 g. So 6 g difference which is absolutely meaningful and that probably explains why there was a lower LDL cholesterol in those on the um uh in the uh plant phase.

[00:03:44]Now, the second trial that I want to touch on here was um looking at uh red meat textured soy protein. So, these are like I don't know if you've seen those soy chunks that you can get in some some shops or um sometimes you can buy it as a powder. Uh but basically, it's uh it acts as a meat substitute, but it's it's basically just uh soy with a lot of the fat removed and the proteins been concentrated. Um, and I I think it works really well as as like an addition to stir fries and things like that if you're looking for little like chunky kind of meaty um meaty foods. And this would be a bit less uh less um processed than than things like a Beyond Meat. Um just to give a little bit of a different perspective here as well. And then we have soy nuts which are whole soy. And this was also a randomized crossover trial like the last trial. And they had 42 post-menopausal women with metabolic syndrome. And there were three phases to this. So each participant went through all three phases and they were 8 weeks each. So the first one was a DASH diet which is a very healthy like Mediterranean style diet with one serving of red meat per day. The second um phase was a DASH diet with 30 gram of the textured soy protein products. And then the third was a DASH diet with the soy nuts.

[00:05:00]And I made this table to hopefully um illustrate these results a bit. If you compare red meat to soy protein, the soy protein led to reductions in total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, APOB, which is an even more accurate marker of cardiovascular risk than LDL cholesterol or total cholesterol. Um, there was no significant difference in fasting glucose, but there was a reduction in fasting insulin and homir, which is a measure of insulin resistance. So, we're seeing plenty of benefits here just from swapping the red meat for the the kind of again the soy chunks or the textured soy protein.

[00:05:34]Um, when you swap out red meat for soy nuts, so the whole soy, again, benefits for all of those, including a reduction in fasting glucose. Um, and then when you look at uh the swap of soy protein for soy nuts, actually the soy nuts did come out on top with lower total and LDL cholesterol, though the difference in APOB was not statistically significant, but then again, reductions in glucose, insulin, and homir. So, of these three, the soy nuts, the whole soy with all the fats in there, with all the fiber and everything, um did appear to come out a bit further on top than the texture soy protein, but the texture soy protein did well um compared to the meat especially.

[00:06:13]And just earlier this year, um this was I believe it was in February that it was published, um there was a meta analysis on plant-based meats and heart health, and they looked at seven randomized control trials at the time. Um, again, like I said, I think there's been even a couple others uh since uh since they wrote up this meta analysis. Um, and they found that there was the plant-based meats reduced total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and body weight, and there were no significant differences in glucose, triglycerides, or blood pressure. And again, that blood pressure finding is interesting given the the sodium content. Um, now they did an additional analysis where they looked specifically at those mop proteinbased products because there were a few trials that looked at those products specifically and they were effective for lowering total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol.

[00:07:02]And this is very much in line with the review that we published. If you look over on the right side, we saw that um most studies reported reductions in total and LDL cholesterol, relatively equivalent blood pressure between the meats and plant-based meats. And then um some studies reported reductions in APOB body weight and waist circumference.

[00:07:23]So the conclusions on heart health would be that plant-based meat alternatives may improve cardiovascular risk factors complete compared to meat without any clear harms. However, there is potential for different effects from different plant-based meats due to the nutritional variability which I highlighted. Um and further research is warranted in some areas. I would love to see some longerterm research looking at actual like heart attacks and strokes versus just the markers like LDL cholesterol.

[00:07:47]Um I would love to see some research on Satan or boweek gluten as that's pretty limited at this point as well. Um I'd like to see some further studies on products that are low in saturated fats because most of what's been um done so far use products that were higher in saturated fats. Um, and then what I think a lot of people here may be interested in is is I'd like to see more comparisons between um, plant-based meats and other [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]