PLANTSTRONG Podcast

Dr. Daniel Chong has spent years helping patients understand their true cardiovascular risk and take meaningful action to prevent heart attacks and strokes.
In this episode, Rip and Dr. Chong dig into the confusing, often polarizing world of cholesterol and heart disease. Is LDL cholesterol really important? How low should it go? Is ApoB a better marker? What about calcium scores, lipoprotein(a), statins, saturated fat, and the growing noise around keto and carnivore diets?
Dr. Chong offers a grounded, practical, and highly nuanced perspective. He explains why standard LDL cholesterol is only part of the picture, why ApoB and LDL particle number may provide a clearer view of risk, and why cardiovascular disease is never about one single factor. Instead, it is about the full internal environment: inflammation, endothelial function, blood flow, plaque stability, lifestyle, and diet.
Rip and Dr. Chong also explore the limits of coronary artery calcium scores, the risks of relying on a “zero” score too early in life, and why soft plaque can still pose a serious threat even when calcified plaque is not detected.
They also discuss saturated fat, heme iron, blood viscosity, hydration, testosterone therapy’s potential effect on red blood cell count, and the fascinating protective layer inside our blood vessels known as the glycocalyx.
This conversation is a reminder that cardiovascular prevention is about building a body that supports vitality from the inside out.
You’ll Learn:
LDL cholesterol matters, but ApoB and LDL particle number may offer a more precise picture of cardiovascular risk.
The longer LDL particles remain elevated, the greater the potential risk over time.
Saturated fat can interfere with the body’s ability to clear LDL particles from the bloodstream.
Coronary artery calcium scores can be useful, but they do not detect soft, non-calcified plaque.
A calcium score of zero does not always mean “clean arteries,” especially in younger people.
Lipoprotein(a), or Lp(a), is an important marker to test at least once.
Dr. Chong recommends looking at a broader cardiovascular panel, including lipids, ApoB, Lp(a), A1C, and hs-CRP.
Heme iron from red meat is absorbed differently than non-heme iron from plants and may contribute to oxidative stress when elevated.
Blood viscosity — or how “thick” your blood is — can influence endothelial function and plaque formation.
Hydration, plant foods, and, in some cases, blood donation may help support healthier blood viscosity.
The glycocalyx is a delicate, hair-like protective layer that supports endothelial function.
A whole food, plant-based lifestyle remains one of the most powerful foundations for vascular health.

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Dr. Kendale Ritchey is a podiatrist in Knoxville, Tennessee, a former University of Tennessee swimmer, and a self-described “recovered barbecue-aholic.”
For nearly three decades, Kendale lived with recurring episodes of intense abdominal, chest, and joint pain, along with fevers and debilitating inflammation.
Then, after watching Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead and Forks Over Knives with his wife Connie, Kendale decided to try a whole food, plant-based lifestyle.
Within weeks, he noticed something extraordinary: the episodes were milder. Then they stopped.
In this conversation, Rip and Kendale talk about his years of unexplained pain, his eventual discovery of Familial Mediterranean Fever through genetic testing, and why a plant-based lifestyle became the turning point in his health.
They also discuss Kendale’s work as a podiatrist and the devastating toll of type 2 diabetes on the feet, including neuropathy, poor circulation, infections, and preventable amputations.
You’ll hear:
Kendale’s background as a swimmer at the University of Tennessee
The construction accident that may have triggered decades of inflammatory episodes
What Familial Mediterranean Fever is and how he eventually discovered the diagnosis
The documentaries that changed everything for Kendale and his wife Connie
How whole food, plant-based eating helped calm his symptoms
His 60-pound weight loss and renewed energy
What he eats now and how he makes the lifestyle work
Why type 2 diabetes is so devastating for the feet
The connection between blood sugar, circulation, nerves, immunity, and amputations
Why Kendale now plants seeds with his own patients about food and lifestyle

Watch the episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/pmsjP92_xH8
Episode Webpage: https://www.plantstrongpodcast.com/blog/kendale-ritchey
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At 17, after adopting a high-protein diet filled with meat, milk, protein powder, and processed meats, Dr. Yu experienced his first gout attack. The pain was so intense that he still remembers waking up at 4:00 a.m. feeling as if someone had slammed a wooden board into his toe.
But gout was only the beginning.
Over the years, Dr. Yu developed recurring, mysterious inflammation throughout his body — jaw, shoulders, wrists, fingers, knees, toes, hips, ankles — along with fatigue and irritability. Even while in medical school, he struggled to find answers. Eventually, he was diagnosed with gout, pseudogout, and spondyloarthritis, an autoimmune arthritis often treated with immunosuppressive medications.
But Dr. Yu had a feeling that diet was part of the story.
Inspired by his wife, Dr. Melissa Mondala, as well as Forks Over Knives and Dr. Michael Greger’s How Not to Die, he decided to try a whole food, plant-based diet. Within two to three months, he noticed his joint pain beginning to disappear. At his follow-up appointment, his C-reactive protein — a key inflammation marker that had been elevated for years — had normalized.
Today, Dr. Yu is a board-certified rheumatologist and integrative medicine physician who helps patients address autoimmune disease through a whole-person lens. In his practice, he looks at food, lifestyle, stress, trauma, infections, environmental exposures, supplements, and patient partnership.
In this conversation, Rip and Dr. Yu discuss:
Why a high-protein diet triggered gout at age 17
The difference between gout, pseudogout, and autoimmune arthritis
What CRP and ESR can reveal about inflammation
Why some autoimmune patients are told “everything looks normal” even when they feel terrible
How a whole food, plant-based diet changed Dr. Yu’s own health
Why rheumatology patients may benefit from looking beyond medications alone
The role of stress, trauma, infections, mold, pesticides, plastics, and environmental triggers
Why Lyme disease can be controversial and often misunderstood
Dr. Yu’s top supplements for inflammation, including turmeric, algae oil, vitamin D, Boswellia, and glutathione
Why vitamin D levels matter in autoimmune disease
How Dr. Yu practices medicine through patient partnership

This episode is a hopeful reminder that inflammation is not always a life sentence — and that the body can respond powerfully when we give it the right conditions to heal.
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Dr. Melissa Mondala joins Rip to talk about women’s health, autoimmune disease, anxiety, perimenopause, metabolic health, hormones, and the power of whole food, plant-based lifestyle medicine.
A family medicine and lifestyle medicine physician, Dr. Melissa shares her personal journey from struggling with GERD, IBS, fatigue, and serious health challenges to discovering the transformative power of plant-based nutrition during her training at Loma Linda. She also shares how meeting Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn and Ann Esselstyn helped shape the way she practices medicine today.
Rip and Dr. Mondala explore why so many women feel anxious, foggy, inflamed, exhausted, or “off” — and how food, blood sugar, hormones, stress, sleep, trauma, movement, and metabolic health all connect.
They also discuss coronary calcium scans, advanced lipid testing, fatty liver disease, perimenopause symptoms, plant-based protein, resistance training, hormone replacement therapy, and why lifestyle medicine is often the most powerful tool in the medical toolbox.
Dr. Mondala’s message is clear: you are not broken, you are not crazy, and there is so much you can do to reclaim your health.
Watch the Episode on YouTube
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Ever eat when you weren’t really hungry and wonder why willpower wasn’t enough to stop you?
This week, Rip talks with Dr. Jud Brewer - neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and author of The Hunger Habit - about cravings, emotional eating, and the science behind food habits.
Rip and Brewer explore the difference between true physical hunger and what researchers call “hedonic hunger” — eating driven by emotions, stress, boredom, celebration, cravings, or cues in our environment. Dr. Jud explains why ultra-processed foods are engineered to hit the “bliss point” of sugar, fat, salt, crunch, and mouthfeel, making them especially hard to resist.
They also dig into why willpower is such a shaky strategy. Most diet programs rely on some version of “just don’t eat that,” but Dr. Jud explains why shame and restriction often backfire. Instead, he teaches a more effective path: awareness.
By paying close attention to how overeating actually feels — and how it feels when we stop at satisfied — the brain can begin to update the reward value of those habits. In other words, we can learn, through direct experience, that certain behaviors no longer serve us.
This episode is a compassionate, science-backed invitation to stop blaming yourself and start getting curious.
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