A number of the exact same things you do to improve your total health can drastically lower your triglycerides. Lifestyle modifications – such as customizing your diet and dropping weight – can possibly cut your triglyceride levels in half.
What Is a Normal Triglyceride Level?
A simple blood test can expose whether your triglycerides fall under a healthy range.
| Table 1. Triglyceride Levels in Blood | |
|---|---|
| Normal (healthy triglyceride levels) | Less than 150 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL), or less than 1.7 millimoles per liter (mmol/L) |
| Borderline high | 150 to 199 mg/dL (1.8 to 2.2 mmol/L) |
| High | 200 to 499 mg/dL (2.3 to 5.6 mmol/L) |
| Very high | 500 mg/dL or above (5.7 mmol/L or above) |
Your doctor will normally look for high triglycerides as part of a cholesterol test (sometimes called a lipid panel or lipid profile). You’ll have to fast for 9 to 12 hours prior to blood can be drawn for an accurate triglyceride measurement.
How to Reduce Triglyceride Levels
After you eat, your body converts the calories that you do not require into triglycerides and stores them in your fat cells to be used for energy later on.
While you do need triglycerides to provide your body with energy, having a lot of triglycerides in your blood can increase your risk of heart disease.
You may ask how to reduce triglycerides naturally with food or by changing lifestyle. Ok, here are 10 essential steps how to reduce high triglycerides:
- Reduce weight. If you’re overweight, losing 5 to 10 percent of your body weight – just 10 to 20 pounds for somebody who weighs 200 pounds – will lower your triglycerides by about 20 percent.
- Cut the sugar. Individuals whose extra sugar consumption is less than 10 percent of day-to-day calories have the lowest triglyceride levels. The AHA suggests that only 5 percent of your day-to-day calories originate from added sugars. That indicates no greater than 150 grams (9 teaspoons) for men and 100 grams (6 teaspoons) for women per day. Due to the fact that the most significant sources of sugar in the American diet are soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages, one way to restrict your sugar intake is to drink no more than 3 12-ounce cans a week.
- Stock up on fiber. Rather of consuming sugar and other refined carbs, concentrate on more fiber-rich foods, such as vegetables, fruits and whole grains.
- Limitation fructose. Research studies have actually discovered that taking in excessive fructose – a kind of sugar – leads to high triglycerides. High-fructose corn syrup is a significant source of fructose. Due to the fact that regular table sugar consists of about the very same quantity of fructose as high-fructose corn syrup (50 percent versus 42 to 55 percent), you’ll need to restrict both in order to reduce your triglycerides. You can determine whether a food contains sugar or high-fructose corn syrup by reading the active ingredients list.
Even the fructose that’s found naturally in fruit can increase triglycerides, so if you have high triglycerides you must see the types of fruit you eat. Dried fruits, such as raisins and dates, have the most fructose, whereas peaches, cantaloupe, grapefruit, strawberries and bananas are reasonably low in fructose.
To reduce your triglycerides, restrict the total amount of fructose you consume to less than 100 grams per day – ideally less than 50. - Eat a moderately low-fat diet. You may be surprised to find out that diets that are very low in fat are not as reliable at decreasing triglycerides as diets reasonably low in fat. The AHA suggests that people with high triglycerides get about 25 to 35 percent of their everyday calories from fat. That’s only somewhat lower than the typical American diet, which is about 37 percent. Changing your regular dairy products with those marked “low-fat” might assist reduce your triglyceride levels.
How do you understand whether you’re getting the right quantity of fat? For somebody who consumes 2,000 calories a day, 30 percent is 600 calories. At 9 calories a gram, that’s about 67 grams of fat a day. You can find out the variety of grams in a single serving of packaged food by checking out the “Nutrition Facts” label. - See the kind of fat you eat. Cut back on saturated fats, which are found in red meat, poultry fat, butter, cheese, milk, and coconut and palm oils, and keep trans fats, found in reducing and stick margarine, to a minimum. Change trans fats with healthier polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats. Examples of polyunsaturated fats consist of safflower, corn and soybean oils. Examples of monounsaturated fats consist of canola and olive oils. Although unsaturated fats are better for you in terms of cholesterol and triglyceride levels, they’re high in calories, so go gentle on the quantity you prepare with or you may gain weight.
- Add omega-3 fatty acids. Oily fish such as salmon, herring, sardines, lake trout and albacore tuna are abundant in omega-3 fatty acids – a type of fat that is actually helpful for you. To profit, the AHA advises that you eat fatty fish a minimum of two times a week. If you already have high triglycerides, you can take omega-3 capsules to provide the extra boost that food alone can’t offer. The pills need to be taken under your doctor’s supervision, as too much omega-3 can disrupt your blood clot capability.
- Workout. If you have high triglycerides, getting at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity most days of the week may reduce your triglyceride levels. Exercise is likewise a fundamental part of keeping your weight under control.
- Quit alcohol. Some research studies have connected even percentages of alcohol to modest boosts in triglycerides, although others have found no association at all.
- Take triglyceride-lowering drugs. If your triglycerides are very high (500 mg/dL or above), your doctor might suggest a medication revealed to lower triglycerides, such as fibrates, niacin, omega-3s (a prescription kind called Lovaza is approved for lowering triglycerides) or statins. But decreasing triglycerides with medication alone has never ever been shown to decrease the risk of heart attack or stroke, so make certain to see your diet and continue working out too.
How to Control High Triglyceride Level in Your Blood?
If you’re healthy, your doctor will perform a basic blood test every 5 years to measure your levels of cholesterol and triglycerides. You may require more regular screening if you’re at high risk for cardiac arrest or stroke.
Physicians have actually generally needed that you quickly the night before the test. Inning accordance with the AHA declaration, you may not have to do that. However, if your test results program triglyceride levels of 200 mg/dL or greater, you’ll need to be tested once again – and you’ll need to fast first.
If your fasting triglycerides are 150 mg/dL or greater, the message is clear: It’s time to start consuming much better and working out more.
