Triglycerides: What you Need to Know

As I get older, I find myself becoming scarily more like my parents, who were known to roll their eyes each time I would finally "discover" something that they had been telling me for years-- as if to silently say, "so you finally figured it out!"

Of course, in my version, it's me rolling my eyes every time the medical profession "discovers" something nutritionists have been saying for years. In this case, they're finally getting wise to the fact that triglycerides are an important risk factor for heart disease. Possibly- gasp- even more than cholesterol.

And the best news is, you can lower triglycerides without any expensive drugs.

Triglycerides are in the news a lot these days because recent 30-year analysis of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (HANES) data by the National Lipid Association shows that the percentage of adults with high triglycerides has doubled. The study also showed an alarming increase among people over 60.

Why should we care? "Studies have shown that unhealthy levels of triglycerides and HDL can lead to heart attack and stroke", said Jerome Cohen, MD, professor emeritus of internal medicine and cardiology at the St. Louis University School of Medicine.

Increased risk of heart disease and stroke seems like a good reason to pay attention. (In my not-so-humble opinion, I'd worry way more about high triglycerides than I would high cholesterol.)

So if you've got high triglycerides, what can you do about it? Simple. Eat a low-carb diet.

Triglycerides are the most common l form of fat found in your both food and in your body. They're in your bloodstream, your diet and your tissues and organs. Most of what you don't like about the way you look in jeans is adipose tissue (fat cells) filled with, yup, triglycerides. When your doctor gives you a blood test, the test invariably measures triglycerides in the blood. (The National Cholesterol Education Program guidelines for normal triglycerides are under 150, though most cutting edge docs and nutritionists would prefer to see a more optimal level like under 100.)

High triglycerides are a strong independent risk factor for heart disease, and they also correlate with obesity, and with low levels of HDL (the so-called "good cholesterol"). High triglycerides are also one of the five signs of Metabolic Syndrome, (also called pre-diabetes), a major risk factor for heart disease.

A low-carb diet will bring triglycerides down 100 per cent of the time (and that's regardless of whether or not you lose much weight on the diet). You read that right. Not 90 percent, not 95%, but 100 percent of the time. There are very, very few strategies in nutrition that have 100 percent success rate, but when it comes to lowering triglycerides, low-carb diets do in fact have that enviable track record.

Conversely, when you replace fat in your diet with carbohydrates- especially the kind that do not come from vegetables and fruits- your triglycerides go up!(3,4,5) So a low-fat diet is not necessarily the answer to high triglycerides.

In fact, one particular form of fat- omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil and flaxseed- have been shown to help lower triglycerides, particularly in combination with vitamin C!
Obviously, you're going to get better overall results if you couple that low-carb diet with exercise and a few other healthy habits, but low-carb is a great beginning.

One reason low-carb works so well to lower triglycerides is that the liver manufactures triglycerides out of fat and excess sugar. The more sugar in your diet the more the liver converts that sugar into the little packages we call triglycerides. Give the body less sugar- (and less processed carbs that convert quickly to sugar in the body)- and guess what? Triglycerides return to a nice, healthy, (low) level.

The best prescription for high triglycerides is a very moderate calorie diet of whole foods with plenty of healthy protein and fat, no sugar, a ton of vegetables, some fruit and nuts and very limited starchy carbs (or not- you can leave out the starchy carbs if you like).

For reducing triglycerides, that diet will work as well as any drug, and has no side effects to boot-- (unless you call weight loss a side-effect).

And that's a very good reason to get the extraneous carbs- white bread, desserts, sugar, soda- out of your diet for good.