Triglycerides are fats found in the human blood. Your body converts calories it cannot utilize immediately into triglycerides. The fat cells act as the storing vessels for these triglycerides. Hormones are known to be later released to boost energy levels during and in between meals. If you consume more calories than your body burns, especially the easy calories such as fats and carbohydrates, you will likely end up with high triglyceride levels a condition known as hypertriglyceridemia.

Carrying out a simple blood analysis will enable you ascertain whether your body triglyceride contents are in a healthy proportion.

  • Normal levels: Below 150 mG/dL, or below 1.7 mmol/L.

  • Averagely high: 150-199 mg/dL (1.8-2.2 mmol/L)

  • High: 200-499 mg/dL (2.3-5.6mmol/L).

  • Extremely high: 500mg/dL or more than (5.7 mmol/L or more)

If the result you get surpasses the usual level, then you need to learn how to lower triglycerides.

How to Lower Triglycerides: 8 Things You Should Do

1

Keep Your Weight in Check

Your risk of higher triglycerides levels increases with an increase in weight, but common changes in lifestyle such as engaging in more regular exercises and eating healthy foods can go a long way to help you shade some weights and reduce your high triglycerides levels. Form the habit of adding more fruits and vegetables in your diet and reduce your intake of beverages and foods with high calorie contents. These fruits and veggies are quite low in calorie content and are therefore suitable for attaining your weight loss dreams. They also contain essential nutrients for your optimal heart health.

2

Exercise

Exercise has an amazing way of reducing the effects triglycerides have on us. According to the recommendations of the American Heart Association, engaging in aerobic exercises for about 30 minutes for at least 5 days weekly and some muscle-toning for about 30 minutes at least twice weekly.

Exercise can improve your workout plans to kill boredom. You can go hiking, walking, biking or swimming. Try out some classes in areas like yoga, spinning, weight management, or Pilates. Continue mixing up some of these activities to keep boredom in check.

3

Choose Foods That Are Good For Improving Your HDL and LDL levels

Maintaining a healthy diet plan can do a lot to your overall health and wellbeing, including areas such as blood fat control and sugar levels. Your cholesterol levels and what you eat walk hand-in-hand.

Foods capable of lowering cholesterol:

  • Fiber (legumes, berries, legumes), healthy lipids (avocados, nuts, olive oils), and sterols or stanols (contained in little quantities in nuts, legumes, vegetable oils, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and can also be added to foods) have been found to possess great cholesterol lowering abilities.

4

Minimize Sugar Consumption

You should reduce the quantity of added sugars in your foods. This is most applicable for people with high levels of triglycerides. Though, the labels of the packaged foods we buy fail to tell us if these foods contain some added sugars. The best way to measure the sugar content of your foods is to pay attention to the list of ingredients of the label for things like corn syrup, sugar, molasses, and corn syrup high in fructose, agave, or maple syrup to ascertain the presence of added sugars in the food items. Some natural sugars like the ones contained in fruits and dairy products, are equally recorded as sugars on the labels that display nutritional facts about the products. Minimize the amount of sugar you add as sweeteners to your food recipes or drinks.

5

Choose Healthy Fats

You can't talk of how to lower triglycerides without talking of replacing all unhealthy fats contained in your food such as trans fats and saturated fats, with monounsaturated fats & polyunsaturated fats that are quite rich in both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.

In order to get more omega-3 fatty acids incorporated into your food, eat more fatty fish, walnuts, ground flaxseeds or whole flaxseeds. Some oils that are sources of omega-3 fatty acids include canola and olive oils. According to ADA, eating about 2 servings of fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids such as trout, salmon, herring, mackerel, tuna, or sardine every week as part of your diet for a healthy heart. Oils that are rich in omega-6 fatty acids are corn, sunflower, and bean oils.

6

Reduce Alcohol Intake

When it comes to how to lower triglycerides, regulating your alcohol intake is of utmost importance. According to some studies, the smallest amount of alcohol can lead to slight increase in the triglyceride levels, though other scholars are yet to discover the link. According to AHA, avoiding alcohol totally will do people with high triglyceride levels a world or good.

7

Quit Smoking

According to ADA, quitting smoking makes managing diabetes easier. Apart from that, quitting smoking is also said to improve your general health conditions and reduce your cancer risks.

A number of programs, supports, and drugs exist to enable you quit smoking faster. But studies suggests that quitting smoking will not happen without consistent attempts and efforts. Avoiding smoking as a diabetic patient can minimize your risk of heart diseases and other diabetes-related complications.

8

Take Drugs That Lower Triglyceride

Recent researches on how to lower triglycerides have led to the discovery a number of drugs. If you have very high triglyceride levels, say about 500mg/dL or more, your physician might prescribe some drugs that can lower your high triglyceride levels, like niacin, omega-3, fibrates, or statins. There is a prescription for lowering triglyceride levels known as lovaza. But using only drugs for lowering triglycerides has not been found as an effective way of reducing the risks of stroke and heart attacks. So make sure you are always watching your dieting and engaging in regular exercises.

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