High Ldl And High Triglycerides

Controlling High Triglycerides: Medical Treatment

People with heart disease and high triglycerides may need medication to bring down their levels.

• Fibrates can lower triglycerides. They modestly improve cholesterol levels, too.
• Fish oilwith omega-3 fatty acids can help keep triglycerides under control. Ask your doctor whether you should use prescription fish oil. Omega-3 acids from plant sources like flaxseed may help.
• Niacin can lower triglycerides by up to 50%. It’s available as a non-prescription supplement and as a prescription drug.

Remember that to stay healthy and keep your triglycerides down, you still have to focus on improving your lifestyle.

When you talk to your doctor, discuss all of the medicines, supplements, and vitamins you take. Some common drugs — like beta-blockers, birth control pills, and diuretics — can cause high triglycerides as a side effect. It’s possible that one of them could be causing your problem.

Does Coffee Affect Triglyceride Levels

Drinking coffeeespecially unfiltered coffeesignificantly contributes to increased levels of total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol , and triglycerides, researchers have reported. The more coffee consumed, the higher the concentrations of LDL-cholesterol and total cholesterol, they found.

Your Test Results: A Preview

Your test results will show your cholesterol levels in milligrams per deciliter of blood . Your total cholesterol and HDL cholesterol are among numerous factors your doctor can use to predict your lifetime or 10-year risk for a heart attack or stroke. Your doctor will also consider other risk factors, such as age, family history, smoking status, diabetes and high blood pressure.

Lipid profile or lipid panel is a blood test that will give you results for your HDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, triglycerides and total blood cholesterol.

Watch an animation about cholesterol score.

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What Causes High Cholesterol

Different things that can cause high cholesterol. Some of these causes you can change and some of them you can’t.

Risk factors you can change:

• Too much food high in saturated fats, like red meat, butter, cream, and other dairy products
• Too many foods with refined sugars, such as sweets, baked goods, white bread and fizzy drinks
• Too much alcohol
• Not being active enough each day
• Having too much body fat, especially around the middle

The good news is there’s lots of ways to manage these risks. Read about lowering your cholesterol.

Risk factors you can’t change:

• Other medical conditions such as kidney or liver disease, or hypothyroidism.

Some high cholesterol conditions that are passed down through families, including:

• familial hyperlipidaemia
• familial hypercholesterolaemia
• familial hypertriglyceridaemia .

If you have one of these conditions, you may not be able to reduce your levels using lifestyle changes alone. You may need to go on medication as well.

If you have a parent or sibling with one of these conditions, talk to your doctor about getting your cholesterol checked. These conditions usually start at a younger age and can affect people in their teens or twenties.

If A Patients Ldl Cholesterol Concentration Could Not Be Calculated Because The Triglycerides Were Too High What Options Do You Have For Getting An Ldl Cholesterol Concentration

If the LDL concentration could not be calculated because the triglyceride level was too high, direct LDL-C testing may be useful. At Quest Diagnostics, for example, direct LDL measurement provides a reliable result even when triglyceride levels are up to 1,000 mg/dL. It can be ordered as a stand-alone test, as a reflex if the patients triglyceride level is likely to exceed 400 mg/dL, or as part of one of several panels.

low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol

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How To Reduce Triglycerides In The Body

• Consuming a balanced diet rich in fruits and leafy vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy products and small portions of lean meat and fish
• Losing weight if overweight or obese
• Limiting sugary foods, modified carbohydrates, tobacco smoking, and alcohol
• Routine medical check-ups with lipid profile

It is highly recommended to keep triglycerides under control since their elevation above the marginal value can act as a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, and Diabetes Mellitus.

• Frequently Asked Questions

Triglycerides are a type of lipid, or fat, your body produces to store extra calories and provide energy. Cholesterol is another lipid that circulates in your blood. Your body uses cholesterol to build cells and produce hormones.

Both triglycerides and cholesterol are essential for your health but having levels that are too high puts your health at risk. Living a healthy lifestyle helps to keep your cholesterol and triglyceride levels within a normal range.

This article covers how triglycerides and cholesterol affect your health and how you can lower them naturally.

How Can You Lower Triglyceride Levels

If you are diagnosed with high blood triglycerides, your doctor may first recommend that you adopt heart-healthy lifestyle changes. These may include:

• Choosing heart-healthy foods and limiting alcohol, added sugars, and foods high in saturated fat
• Getting regular physical activity
• Aiming for a healthy weight
• Getting enough good quality sleep
• Managing stress

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Are Higher Triglycerides Better

Studies have consistently linked high triglycerides levels with heart disease, heart attacks, and stroke, especially in people with low levels of “good” HDL cholesterol and in those with type 2 diabetes. The good news is that there’s a lot you can do on your own to lower triglycerides and improve health.

Complications Of High Cholesterol

Since high cholesterol alone typically doesnt cause any symptoms, people only experience complications when their high cholesterol contributes to the development of severe heart disease, often in the form of heart attack or stroke. Over the long term, high cholesterol can cause plaque to form in your arteries, which can then narrow and lead to a cardiovascular emergency.

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Cholesterol And Healthy Eating

What we eat has an impact on our cholesterol levels and can help reduce our risk of disease. The Heart Foundation recommends following a heart-healthy eating pattern, which means eating a wide variety of fresh and unprocessed foods and limiting highly processed foods including take away, baked goods, chocolate, chips, lollies and sugary drinks. Not only does this help to maintain a healthy and interesting diet, but it provides essential nutrients to the body.

A heart-healthy eating pattern includes:

• plenty of vegetables, fruit and wholegrains
• a variety of healthy protein-rich foods , legumes , nuts and seeds. Smaller amounts of eggs and lean poultry can also be included in a heart-healthy eating pattern. If choosing red meat, make sure it is lean and limit to one to three times a week
• unflavoured milk, yoghurt and cheese. People with high cholesterol should choose reduced fat varieties
• healthy fats and oils. Choose nuts, seeds, avocados, olives and their oils for cooking
• herbs and spices to flavour foods, instead of adding salt.

This way of eating is also naturally high in fibre, which is good news, because a high intake of dietary fibre can also reduce levels of bad cholesterol in the blood.

Also, be mindful of how much you are eating. Portion sizes have increased over time and many of us are eating more than we need which can increase our cholesterol and risk of heart disease.

Serving size can vary depending on age, gender and specific nutrition needs.

What Can Raise Your Triglycerides

Triglycerides can be raised due to what doctors refer to as primary and secondary causes, explained below. Some people have a combination of both.

It is very important that your doctors investigates all these potential causes so that you can start treatment.

Primary causes of raised triglycerides

Primary refers to inherited conditions which cause raised triglyceride levels.

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What Can Affect My Ldl Level

Things that can affect your LDL level include:

• Diet. Saturated fat and cholesterol in the food you eat make your blood cholesterol level rise
• Weight. Being overweight tends to raise your LDL level, lower your HDL level, and increase your total cholesterol level
• Physical Activity. A lack of physical activity can lead to weight gain, which can raise your LDL level
• Smoking.Cigarette smoking lowers your HDL cholesterol. Since HDL helps to remove LDL from your arteries, if you have less HDL, that can contribute to you having a higher LDL level.
• Age and Sex. As women and men get older, their cholesterol levels rise. Before the age of menopause, women have lower total cholesterol levels than men of the same age. After the age of menopause, womens LDL levels tend to rise.
• Genetics. Your genes partly determine how much cholesterol your body makes. High cholesterol can run in families. For example, familial hypercholesterolemia is an inherited form of high blood cholesterol.
• Medicines. Certain medicines, including steroids, some blood pressure medicines, and HIV/AIDS medicines, can raise your LDL level.
• Other medical conditions. Diseases such as chronic kidney disease, diabetes, and HIV/AIDS can cause a higher LDL level.
• Race. Certain races may have an increased risk of high blood cholesterol. For example, African Americans typically have higher HDL and LDL cholesterol levels than whites.

Low Hdl High Triglycerides

Low HDL, High triglycerides is a common cholesterol disorder. However, many people stay focused on LDL cholesterol. Often, they have no clue why they have low HDL, high triglycerides and how to raise HDL cholesterol and lower triglycerides level.

There are three types of cholesterol you should know about:

1. HDL cholesterol, also known as the good cholesterol.

2. LDL cholesterol, also known as the bad cholesterol.

3. Triglycerides

• Is high triglycerides curable?

The cause may be a lack of an enzyme needed to help metabolize fat and get it out of the bloodstream. In some cases the problem appears along with another disorder such as hypothyroidism, pancreatitis, or diabetes. If a primary disease is identified and treated, the triglyceride levels should drop to normal.

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High Total Cholesterol Normal Ldl High Hdl Normal Triglycerides

In this case, the high total cholesterol is less troublesome since its largely due to elevated HDL . The fact that HDL is high and LDL is normal also makes for a favorable HDL:LDL ratio. Although, extremely high levels of HDL cholesterol can be due to genetics. Generally, HDL levels shouldnt exceed 116 mg/dL for men and 135 mg/dL for women.2

Consult A Doctor For Your Ldl Hdl Ratio Problem

High LDL HDL ratio and low Triglycerides can be caused by a lot of reasons. If you take LDL HDL ratio and Triglycerides blood tests and the results are higher than 3 Ratio for LDL HDL ratio and lower than 0 mg/dL for Triglycerides, your physician may recommend more tests to figure out the problem. You might also get these tests if your physician thinks you have some other disease.

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How Often Should I Get A Cholesterol Test

When and how often you should get a cholesterol test depends on your age, risk factors, and family history. The general recommendations are:

For people who are age 19 or younger::

• The first test should be between ages 9 to 11
• Children should have the test again every 5 years
• Some children may have this test starting at age 2 if there is a family history of high blood cholesterol, heart attack, or stroke

For people who are age 20 or older::

• Younger adults should have the test every 5 years
• Men ages 45 to 65 and women ages 55 to 65 should have it every 1 to 2 years

High Total Cholesterol High Ldl Cholesterol Low Hdl Cholesterol And High Triglycerides

High alert! This is the most dangerous combination of lipid markers. Roughly 32% of Americans have elevated LDL cholesterol, according to the CDC.1 In this ratio, where high LDL is coupled with low HDL, the risk of developing cardiovascular disease is high. It is very important here to bring down LDL cholesterol and increase HDL cholesterol to help combat the bad LDL. The ratio of HDL to LDL is very important.

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Not A Direct Measurement

The LDL measurement is typically considered the most important aspect of your cholesterol profile when it comes to assessing risk. Before you panic about your results, it’s crucial to know that the traditional cholesterol test does not directly measure LDL. The fasting cholesterol test calculates your LDL using a formula called the Friedewald equation. It takes into account your total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein and triglycerides to make an estimate. Because of this limitation, results can be misleading under certain circumstances.

How Can A High Ldl Level Raise My Risk Of Coronary Artery Disease And Other Diseases

If you have a high LDL level, this means that you have too much LDL cholesterol in your blood. This extra LDL, along with other substances, forms plaque. The plaque builds up in your arteries this is a condition called atherosclerosis.

Coronary artery disease happens when the plaque buildup is in the arteries of your heart. It causes the arteries to become hardened and narrowed, which slows down or blocks the blood flow to your heart. Since your blood carries oxygen to your heart, this means that your heart may not be able to get enough oxygen. This can cause angina , or if the blood flow is completely blocked, a heart attack.

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Diagnosis Of High Triglycerides

A blood test can reveal whether or not you have high triglycerides. You may need to have two blood tests for accurate results. Dont eat anything for at least 12 hours before each blood test because food particularly fatty food can temporarily boost triglyceride levels in the blood and skew your test results.Triglycerides are measured in mmol/L. The range includes:

• Very high over 6 mmol/L
• High between2 and 6 mmol/L
• Borderline high between 1.7 and 2 mmol/L
• Normal below 1.7 mmol/L

The doctor may also test your cholesterol levels. In many cases, high triglycerides and high cholesterol go hand in hand. This condition is sometimes known as combined hyperlipidemia.

How Can I Lower My Ldl Level

There are two main ways to lower your LDL cholesterol:

• Therapeutic lifestyle changes . TLC includes three parts:
• Heart-healthy eating. A heart-healthy eating plan limits the amount of saturated and trans fats that you eat. Examples of eating plans that can lower your cholesterol include the Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes diet and the DASH eating plan.
• Weight Management. If you are overweight, losing weight can help lower your LDL cholesterol.
• Physical Activity. Everyone should get regular physical activity .
• Drug Treatment. If lifestyle changes alone do not lower your cholesterol enough, you may also need to take medicines. There are several types of cholesterol-lowering drugs available, including statins. The medicines work in different ways and can have different side effects. Talk to your health care provider about which one is right for you. While you are taking medicines to lower your cholesterol, you still should continue with the lifestyle changes.

Some people with familial hypercholesterolemia may receive a treatment called lipoprotein apheresis. This treatment uses a filtering machine to remove LDL cholesterol from the blood. Then the machine returns the rest of the blood back to the person.

NIH: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

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How To Lower Triglycerides And Cholesterol Naturally

Your genes, diet, and lifestyle all affect your triglyceride and cholesterol levels. Some people naturally produce more triglycerides and cholesterol than others. This is based on their genetics and family history. Still, these levels are just part of your overall lipid levels, and lifestyle changes are one of the best ways to keep your numbers within a healthy range.

What Is Ldl Cholesterol

Low density lipoprotein is a type of lipoprotein, which helps in the transportation of cholesterol in our body. This is often referred to as a bad cholesterol type since it can get deposited on blood vessel walls as thick and dense plaques and attracts macrophages which will eventually obstruct the vessel lumen causing Atherosclerosis.

Increased LDL levels markedly increase the risk of coronary artery disease.

Every person who is suspected to have Hypercholesterolemia should get a lipid profile done once in every month, which will reveal a laboratory measurement of LDL cholesterol in the body.

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Symptoms Of High Blood Cholesterol And Triglycerides

High cholesterol typically doesnt cause any symptoms. Symptoms may only appear after the increased cholesterol has caused significant damage.

For instance, symptoms may come in the form of heart disease symptoms, such as chest pain or nausea and fatigue. A heart attack or stroke may result from uncontrolled cholesterol, among other things.

Difference Between Ldl And Triglycerides

Low-density lipoprotein is a type of lipoprotein, which helps in the transportation of cholesterol in our body.

Triglyceride is a form of dietary fat synthesized in the liver as well as taken in with certain food types such as meat, dairy products, and cooking oils.

Elevated levels of both these substances in blood are known to be clinical measurements which give a hint towards hypercholesterolemia.

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