Triglycerides

Triglycerides are often overlooked when people focus on improving their health by lowering their cholesterol levels. However, the level of triglycerides in your blood can be just as significant as the levels of good and bad cholesterol.

What are Triglycerides?

Triglycerides are found in your blood and they are a type of lipid. They occur when you eat and the body turns any calories it doesn’t need right away into triglycerides. These are stored in fat cells and can easily be converted back to energy when they are needed.

However, when you regularly eat more calories than you need, especially when these are in the form of fat or carbohydrate, triglycerides don’t have the opportunity to be converted into energy, and you will have high triglyceride levels.

What is the Risk of High Triglycerides?

Having high levels of triglycerides in the body can contribute to the hardening of the arteries known as atherosclerosis. This condition increases the risk of cardiovascular problems including heart disease, heart attacks, and strokes.

High levels of triglycerides may also be a sign of another condition such as uncontrolled type 2 diabetes, kidney disease, liver disease, or hypothyroidism. People with metabolic syndrome, or who are obese also often have high levels of triglycerides.

Do bear in mind that high levels of triglycerides may also be a side effect of taking certain medications, such as beta blockers, steroids, birth control pills, or tamoxifen, which is given to breast cancer survivors.

How to Test for High Triglycerides

When you have a cholesterol test, a triglyceride test will often be performed at the same time. This may be known as a lipid panel test or a lipid profile. In order to get an accurate triglycerides test you will need to fast for 12 hours before your blood test.

See our post on normal levels of triglycerides to see the result you should be aiming for.