Reduce Your Risk for Heart Attack or Stroke

What are triglycerides?
Triglycerides are one of the fatty substances in your blood, like cholesterol, that are often referred to as lipids. Triglycerides can come directly from fatty foods, such as butter, margarine, and oils. In addition, when you eat more calories than your body can use, the leftover calories are turned into triglycerides and stored in fat cells in your body. This stored-up fat is an important source of energy and also helps keep your body warm. But too much of this fat can be a problem and increases your risk of heart disease. When triglyceride levels are very high, the pancreas can become inflamed, a very serious condition called pancreatitis that often results in death.

How do I know if my triglycerides are normal or high?
You can’t really tell by the way you feel if your triglyceride level is normal or high. Even if your triglyceride level is very high, you won’t have any symptoms. This is why you should ask your doctor to check your triglycerides when he or she is measuring your cholesterol level or if you are at risk for heart disease. The only way to know your triglycerides level is by taking a blood test. The same blood test that measures your cholesterol can also measure your triglycerides level at the same time.

What are normal and abnormal triglyceride levels?
In healthy adults, the following numbers are used to determine if your triglycerides level is normal, borderline, or high:
• Normal: less than 150 mg/dL
• Borderline high: 150 to 200 mg/dL
• High: 200 to 499 mg/dL
• Very high: 500 mg/dL or more

How do triglyceride levels get high?
When you eat too many calories or don’t get enough exercise, your triglycerides can go up. It’s just like having too much “bad” cholesterol or not enough “good” cholesterol—it may cause you to have a heart attack or a stroke. And like cholesterol, older people tend to have higher triglyceride levels because they exercise less and their metabolism is often not as good as when they were younger.

Things that can increase triglycerides are:
• Eating a lot of carbohydrates: sugar, white bread, potatoes, pasta
• Weighing too much
• Not getting enough exercise
• Drinking too much sweet drinks, alcohol
• Smoking cigarettes
• Taking medications, such as hormone therapy
• Just getting older

People who have problems like diabetes or kidney disease or who are obese can get high triglyceride levels, even if they don’t eat a lot of fat. This is because these conditions interfere with the way the body processes fats. And some people are born with conditions, such as “familial hypertriglyceridemia,” that make triglyceride levels go up.

How can I reduce my triglycerides?
Usually, all you need to do is make some lifestyle changes. One of the most important things is watching what you eat. Cut down on sugary foods. Avoid foods with a lot of fat. Look for foods that don’t have a lot of saturated fat, like skim or 1% milk, fish, chicken without the skin, dark bread, fruits, and vegetables. When you shop, look at what the label says, and don’t buy foods that have “trans fat” in them, like stick margarine, or “saturated fat.” You should also try not to eat foods that may increase your cholesterol level, like egg yolks and whole milk.

Consult with your doctor on what you should do to reduce your triglycerides level. The following changes can help you to reduce your triglycerides level:
• Get more exercise: 30 minutes every day is best, but any exercise is better than not exercising at all
• Lose weight if you weigh too much; ask your doctor if your weight is a problem
• Stop smoking; your doctor could help you with this
• Don’t drink a lot of alcohol. Beer or hard alcohol like vodka is particularly bad

If you try these lifestyle changes for some time and they don’t help, your doctor may recommend that you start taking medication for that purpose.

Your doctor may also tell you to take a drug immediately if your triglyceride level is higher than 500 mg/dL. Which drug you will take depends on what the test shows. Be sure your doctor recommends the drug before you purchase it, even if you buy it online.