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MIAMI BEACH, Florida (AP) -- A new vegetarian diet emphasizing soy and soluble fiber can lower cholesterol by a surprising one-third. But finicky eaters may balk at its daily helpings of okra, eggplant and Metamucil, among other things.

The Portfolio diet, as it's called, involves several trendy nutrients that have been shown separately to be good for the heart. Canadian researchers set out to see what would happen if they were combined into a single regimen.

In Miami Beach at a meeting of the American Heart Association this week, they presented data showing that the combination seems to work. Ordinarly, people do well to lower their cholesterol by 10 percent by changing their diet, so doctors often have to prescribe powerful statin drugs to get their cholesterol down far enough.

"The reductions are surprising," said Cyril Kendall of the University of Toronto, who directed the study. "Most dietitians would not expect that sort of reduction through dietary means."

He said the Portfolio diet appears to do about as well as the older statin drugs that are still frontline therapy for high cholesterol.

His research was sponsored by the Canadian government, the Almond Board of California and the food companies Unilever Canada and Loblaw Brands.

"This was a pretty impressive result," said Dr. Stephen Daniels of Children's Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati. "However, the results need to be replicated. Can this be done in the real world or only in an experiment?"

The diet is based on a low-fat vegetarian regimen that emphasizes foods shown individually to be beneficial -- soy, soluble fiber, plant sterols and almonds. Sources of soluble fiber include oats, barley, legumes, eggplant, okra and Metamucil. Some brands of margarine are high in plant sterols.

Looking over the Portfolio
In the experiment, 25 volunteers ate either a standard low-fat diet or the Portfolio diet, while researchers watched the effects on their LDL cholesterol, which increases the risk of heart disease, and HDL, which lowers it. After a month, LDL levels fell 12 percent in those on the standard diet and 35 percent in those on the Portfolio diet. However, HDL levels were unchanged in people on the Portfolio diet.

Kendall said volunteers found the diet extremely filling, and several stayed on it after the experiment ended.

It appears that a Portfolio diet is effective at reducing cholesterol and coronary heart disease risk," he said.

Whether it truly is as good as a statin, though, remains to be seen. Those drugs have been proven to reduce the risk of heart attacks and death, while the diet has not been put to that test. And statins may also protect the heart in ways that go beyond their effect on cholesterol.

In the experiment, dieters got foods supplied by the researchers that are all available from supermarkets or health food stores. Every meal contained soy in some form, such as soy yogurt or soy milk.

A typical breakfast included oat bran, fruit and soy milk. Lunch might feature vegetarian chili, oat bran bread and tomato. A dinner could consist of vegetable curry, a soy burger, northern beans, barley, okra, eggplant, cauliflower, onions and red peppers. Volunteers also got Metamucil three times a day to provide soluble fiber from psyllium.

On a 2,000-calorie daily diet, volunteers got two grams of plant sterols from enriched margarine, 16 grams of soluble fiber from oats, barley and psyllium, and 45 grams of soy protein. They also got 200 grams of eggplant and 100 grams of okra daily and 30 grams of raw almonds. Additional vegetable protein was provides by beans, chick peas and lentils.

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