Triglyceride Basics

With cholesterol, there's the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

You know the good cholesterol as HDL, the bad cholesterol as LDL, but triglycerides has been dubbed as the really ugly cholesterol. The problem with triglycerides is that it is largely under the radar and unknown to people.

What are High Triglycerides?

Fats. Fats that circulate inside your blood stream. These particular fats are used to store the excess energy that was consumed at the meal. Once the three glycerides are packaged into the TRI-glyceride, they can be released later if needed. Basically, if you have ever eaten more calories than you needed, the overflow is stored as triglycerides. They appear in your blood, your liver, and fat cells.

How are Triglycerides Measured?

Triglycerides are measured by a blood test. Normally this blood test is a component of a full lipid panel being conducted.

What to Know About Your Numbers

• Normal - Less than 150 mg/dL
• Borderline high - 150 to 199 mg/dL
• High - 200 to 499 mg/dL
• Very high - 500 mg/dL or above

Clearly, high triglyceride levels are a warning sign for heart disease, but when they are very high this could also indicate that you have inflammation in the pancreas also.

Guidelines for Triglyceride Control

Food and Drink Choices

• Eliminate high sugar drinks from your diet such as soda, fruit drinks, fruit juice and any other drink that contains excess sugar.

• Limit processed foods especially ones that contain a lot of excess sugar. Some examples are prepackaged, cookies, muffins and candies.

• Remove foods from the diet that contain:
• High fructose corn syrup
• Partially hydrogenated oils
• Food coloring (ex. yellow lake 5, blue 1, red 40 etc)
• Artificial sweeteners (ex. Aspartame, Sucrolose, Splenda)

• Food quality is an issue, but so is food quantity:
• Overconsumption of food leads to the overproduction of triglycerides.
• Work on slowing down your eating pace and listening to your body. Be aware of when the next bite is going to be the over the edge bite. Work towards leaving the table feeling satisfied as opposed to overly satisfied.

• As for drinks, quantity AND quality also play roles:
• If you do drink alcoholic beverages, have them with your meal and in moderation. On average, moderation would be considered no more than one drink a day for women and no more than two drinks a day per men.
• As for quality, choose drinks that do not have high sugar content such as soda, fruit juice and fruit drinks.

Lifestyle Behaviors

Make physical activity a regular part of your lifestyle:

• Walk more throughout the day.
• Fit short bursts of exercise in throughout the day. Do 10 minutes of sit-ups, push-up and squats. Then later in the day do 10 minutes of dancing.
• Carve out time to do a physical activity you enjoy.
• If you smoke cigarettes, it would be good to get some support to quit smoking.