Which Medicines Can Lower Triglycerides
For some people, good habits may not be enough. Medication might be needed. The decision for you and your doctor can be complicated because other health conditions are usually involved. Several types of medicine can improve levels. They include:
- High doses of omega-3s are needed to lower triglycerides and should be taken only under a doctor’s care. Epanova, Lovaza, and Vascepa are prescription forms of omega-3s.
Your doctor may also prescribe a class of drugs called âstatinsâ that lower cholesterol. Examples include: atorvastatin , rosuvastatin , and simvastatin .
You may feel side effects from these drugs. Be sure to talk it over with your doctor or pharmacist.
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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.
What Causes High Triglycerides
While your body needs triglycerides for energy, many factors can lead to having levels that are too high. For example, when you overeat and consume more calories than your body needs, especially from sugary foods, your liver creates extra triglycerides. Other risk factors include:
- Being overweight or obese
- Taking certain medications
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What Are The Symptoms
High blood triglycerides usually do not cause any symptoms. Untreated or uncontrolled high blood triglyceride levels may increase your risk of serious complications such as coronary heart disease and stroke.
Very high blood triglycerides can raise the risk of acute pancreatitis, or inflammation of the pancreas that causes severe pain in the abdomen.
What Are Risk Factors For High Triglycerides
Factors that may raise triglyceride levels include:
- Excessive alcohol use.
- American Academy of Family Physicians. High Cholesterol. Accessed 11/182/2021.
- American Heart Association. Cholesterol. Accessed 11/18/2021.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Getting Your Cholesterol Checked. Accessed 11/18/2021.
- Hormone Health Network. Triglycerides. Accessed 11/18/2021.
- MedlinePlus. Triglycerides Test. Accessed 11/18/2021.
- Merck Manual Consumer Version. Overview of Cholesterol and Lipid Fats. Accessed 11/18/2021.
- National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. High Blood Triglycerides. Accessed 11/18/2021.
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What Are Triglycerides What You Need To Know
You probably know that high cholesterol is a risk factor for heart attackbut having high levels of triglycerides can also put you at risk, especially if you already have cardiovascular disease. What are triglycerides, and what can you do to keep them at a healthy level?
Triglycerides are fat particles in your bloodstream, the most common type of fat in your body. When you eat, your body converts extra calories into triglycerides and stores them in fat cells. When you need energy, your body releases these triglycerides. But having more of them than you need can contribute to problems with heart health.
How High Is Too High
When you have a blood test to check your cholesterol levels, your triglycerides will also be measured. The National Institutes of Health has issued the following guidelines for triglyceride levels in milligrams per deciliter :
- Normal: Less than 150
- Very high: 500 and above
Anything above 150 mg/dL can raise your risk for heart disease.
Having high triglycerides is also part of metabolic syndrome, a group of risk factors that increase your risk of heart disease and diabetes. If you have three or more of the following risk factors, you have metabolic syndrome:
- Abdominal obesity, or too much fat around your waistline
- Low HDL cholesterol level
- High fasting blood sugar
- High triglycerides
Having metabolic syndrome doubles your risk for heart attack and stroke, and puts you at five times greater risk for developing Type 2 diabetes.
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What Other Tests Might I Have Along With This Test
Your healthcare provider may also order other tests to look at how well your heart is working. These tests may include:
- Electrocardiogram, or ECG, which tests your hearts electrical impulses to see if it is beating normally
- Stress test, in which you may have to exercise while being monitored by ECG
- Echocardiogram, which uses sound waves to make pictures of your heart
- Cardiac catheterization. For this test, a healthcare provider puts a tube into your blood vessels and injects dye. X-rays are then done to look for clogs in the arteries of the heart
Your provider may also order tests for high blood pressure or blood sugar, or glucose.
How Are High Triglycerides Treated
The best ways to lower triglycerides include losing weight, eating fewer calories, and exercising regularly . Diet changes that may help include avoiding fats and sugar and refined foods . Also avoid alcohol and limit fats found in meats high in saturated fat, egg yolks, and whole milk products. Trans fats, found in fried foods and commercial baked products, are unhealthy. Eat healthy monounsaturated fatsolive, peanut, and canola oils. Eat fish high in omega-3 fatty acids instead of red meat.
If diet changes and exercise dont work, medicines such as nicotinic acid , fibrates , and omega-3 fatty acids can help lower triglycerides. Niacin side effects limit its use. Cholesterol-lowering medications known as statins can also lower triglycerides, but their effect is limited.
Its also important to control diabetes since a high sugar level will also increase triglycerides.
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What Is A Healthy Range For Triglycerides
Your doctor can determine your triglyceride levels with a simple blood test. A normal healthy range should be less than 150 mg/dl. If your levels are between 150 and 199 mg/dl, you are in the borderline range. High triglycerides levels are designated as the 200 to 499 mg/dl range, while very high is 500 mg/dl or above.
Your doctor will check your triglyceride levels as part of a lipid panel, which checks your LDL and HDL levels as well.
How Do Triglycerides Get Into The Blood
When we eat foods containing triglycerides, such as meat, dairy products, cooking oils and fats, they are absorbed by our intestines and packaged into parcels of fats and protein called chylomicrons . These carry the triglycerides in the blood stream to our tissues to be used for energy straight away, or stored for later.
The body also makes its own supply of triglycerides in the liver. This form is carried in a different type of lipoprotein known as VLDL cholesterol.
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How To Prepare For The Test
You should not eat for 8 to 12 hours before the test.
Alcohol and some medicines can interfere with blood test results.
- Make sure your health care provider knows what medicines you take, including over-the-counter drugs and supplements.
- Your provider will tell you if you need to stop taking any medicines before you have this test.
- DO NOT stop or change your medicines without talking to your provider first.
What Are Triglycerides And Why Do They Matter
We can measure health in many ways. Monitoring Cholesterol levels is one of them. An average cholesterol level can vary from person to person, and there are different factors. There is one more health status that we often ignore. That is triglyceride. Triglyceride is one of the most important factors to observe when seeing a cholesterol report.
Today is 28th March, and It is National triglyceride day. We stand by the words of our health being the ultimate wealth. You can be sure that we will be waving that banner this National Triglycerides Day on 28th March. Just like all things in life require balance, so does our nutritional intake. Too much of anything, even if they are vitamins, can be harmful. This is why high triglyceride levels, which are essential lipid compounds that help with providing us with energy, can be highly detrimental.
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What To Do About High Triglycerides
Your blood work results came back, and it turns out you have high triglycerides. Now what? Even if you know what triglycerides are and what they mean for your health, you may not know how to return your levels to normal.
Thats when you turn to our expert.
Dr. Michael Skardasis atOptimal Performance Medicine in Woodstock, Georgia, specializes in helping you understand your health and equipping you with the tools you need to manage it. Heres everything you need to know about triglycerides and what to do when your levels are out of whack.
What Are Triglycerides And Why Is It Important To Keep Your Levels Low
If you check your blood pressure and cholesterol levels regularly, you might need to monitor another important thing in your body: your triglycerides.
Like high blood pressure or bad cholesterol, having high triglyceride levels increases your risk for heart disease. However, the same lifestyle choices that promote overall health can help lower your triglycerides, too.
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What Are Normal And High Triglyceride Levels
The National Cholesterol Education Program sets guidelines for triglyceride levels:
- Normal levels: Less than 150 milligrams per deciliter
- Borderline high:150 to 199
- High: 200 to 499
- Very high: 500 or more
Elevated levels may lead to heart disease, especially in people with low levels of “good” cholesterol and high levels of “bad” cholesterol. The same is true if you have type 2 diabetes.
Experts once debated how important triglycerides are, but it now seems clear that higher levels are linked to problems such as heart disease.
One thing is clear, though: A good diet and exercise plan can lower triglyceride levels, improve cholesterol, and decrease the chance of heart disease.
The Structure Of Triglycerides
The building blocks of triglycerides are fatty acids and glycerol. The term triglyceride comes from the fact that they have three fatty acids attached to glycerol .
Glycerol is an alcohol, and an organic compound, with the formula .
Fatty acids are acids belonging to the carboxylic acid group. They consist of a long hydrocarbon chain, with a carboxyl group COOH at one end and a methyl group at the other. The simple formula of fatty acids is RCOOH, where R is the hydrocarbon chain with the methyl group.
Depending on the bonds between carbon atoms in the chain, fatty acids can be saturated and unsaturated: mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated. Saturated fatty acids have only single bonds. Unsaturated fatty acids have one or more double bonds between carbon atoms: mono-unsaturated have one double bond, while poly-unsaturated have two or more. That is why you will hear fats referred to as saturated and unsaturated fats.
Figure 1
Due to a large number of carbons and hydrogens comprising the structure of triglycerides, they are entirely insoluble in water .
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Articles On High Triglycerides
When your triglyceride levels are too high, you may not have symptoms. It’s a “silent” problem with big implications, such as a four-fold increase in the likelihood of having a heart attack or stroke.
A simple blood test is all it takes to check your triglyceride levels. If they’re too high, you can get them back under control, often by changing your daily habits.
If you already know that your triglyceride levels are too high, the actions you take now might even save your life.
What Is A Triglyceride And How Can It Affect Our Health
Triglycerides are a type of fat found in the bloodstream.
When a person eats, the body converts any calories it doesn’t need to use right away into triglycerides. Fat cell stores triglycerides. Later, when we do fasting or don’t have enough calories to run our body, hormones release triglycerides for energy. It’s a kind of backup fuel like a laptop has a battery. A high triglyceride level can block arteries and cause heart stroke, high blood pressure, prediabetes and hypothyroidism.
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Add More Fiber To Your Diet
Fiber is the part of your food that isnt digested, and its important because it helps you feel full. According to a study published in February 2019 in the journal Current Developments in Nutrition, dietary fiber can reduce the risk of high triglycerides in young to middle-aged adults who are overweight or obese. In general, fiber-rich foods also have carbohydrate content that is more complex and can lead to more gradual absorption by the body, which can also help temper the triglyceride increase that occurs after meals, says Michael Wesley Milks, MD, a cardiologist and assistant professor of clinical medicine at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus. Fiber is found in whole grains and nutrient-rich foods such as fruits and vegetables.
Finding Out Your Triglycerides Levels
Triglycerides are measured with a simple blood test. Triglyceride levels should be measured when you have a cholesterol test as they can also contribute to your risk of developing heart disease, and other disease of the heart and blood vessels. The triglyceride test measures the triglycerides carried in chylomicrons and VLDL cholesterol. National guidelines in the UK no longer recommend a fasting blood test .
What should your triglyceride levels be?
HEART UK experts state that we should aim for a non-fasting triglyceride level below 2.3mmol/L.
If your doctor has asked you to fast for a test then your triglyceride level should be below 1.7mmol/L. This fasting test number is lower because only the triglycerides made by the liver and carried in the VLDL cholesterol will be measured not the triglycerides you get from food. As you have not eaten, there will be no chylomicrons present in your blood.
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What Are The Causes And Symptoms Of High Triglycerides
Causes include obesity, eating too much unhealthy food, genetics, certain illnesses including poorly controlled diabetes, kidney disease, and underactive thyroid . Some drugs, such as steroids and birth control pills, and drinking a lot of alcohol can also cause it.
Most people have no symptoms. Very high levels can cause small fat deposits under the skin and a painful inflammation of the pancreas called pancreatitis.
Other Causes Of High Triglycerides
High triglyceride levels may have other causes besides diet. For some people, high triglycerides are genetic. While dietary changes may help lower them a bit, you may also want to speak with your doctor about whether you also need to take medication.
Pregnancy can also cause a temporary increase in triglycerides. In women who are genetically predisposed, the increase can sometimes be severe and life-threatening.
Some medications can also raise your triglyceride levels. These include:
- Birth control pills containing estrogen
- Hormone replacement therapy
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Choose Healthy Fats Over Saturated Fats
Another way to lower triglycerides and cholesterol naturally is by eating healthy fats. Omega-3 fatty acids lower triglycerides and bad cholesterol by increasing fat metabolism, according to the AHA. Omega-3 fatty acids are found in oily fish, such as salmon and herring, olive oil, and dietary supplements. For people with high triglycerides, the AHA recommends prescription-strength omega-3 fatty acid supplements at a dose of 4 grams per day, although its still best to get it from foods. Saturated fats, which come mainly from meat sources, should be limited to no more than 5 to 6 percent of your total daily calories, and your daily intake of cholesterol should be no more than 300 mg, according to the AHA.
What Strategies Can Be Used To Lower Triglyceride Levels
For many people, high triglycerides are caused by another disorder, such as diabetes, obesity, renal failure, or alcoholism. With these conditions, the strategy is to treat the primary cause. When high triglycerides are not caused by another disorder, they are often seen together with high cholesterol and treatment is directed toward lowering both cholesterol and triglycerides. Lifestyle changes, such as a healthy diet and increased exercise, are usually the primary strategy for lowering levels. If these fail, lipid-lowering medications such as statins are generally recommended. For more on this, visit the American Heart Associationâs webpage on Healthy Living.
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What Are Normal Triglyceride Levels
Normal fasting blood triglyceride levels are:
- Lower than 150 mg/dL for adults
- Lower than 90 mg/dL for children ages 10 to 19
Your doctor may diagnose you with high blood triglycerides if your fasting blood triglyceride levels are consistently 150 milligrams per deciliter or higher.
Talk to your doctor about what your numbers mean for you.
How To Lower Triglycerides Naturally
Triglycerides can be lowered without drugs. For example, they can be lowered naturally through diet changes, decreasing consumption of alcohol or sugary beverages, by increasing physical activity, by losing weight, and other ways. As little as 5% to 10% reduction in body weight may lower triglycerides. The table below summarizes how much benefit different changes can effect.
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Low Levels Are Usually Protective
It is well known that high triglycerides are dangerous, but little is known about the influence of low levels on health. Studies suggest that in healthy people, low triglyceride levels are beneficial. Low triglycerides are also good for people with diabetes and might also be protective against heart attacks .
One study even suggests that the lower a persons triglycerides are, the less likely they will be to die from any cause. In this study, almost 14k people were followed for 24 years. The scientist found that levels below 89 mg/dL thats almost twice lower than the borderline-normal value of 150 mg/dL were associated with a 41% lower risk of dying than high levels
So can your levels ever be too low to do any harm?
We still dont have any definitive answers, but we can look for some clues.