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Ways to Reduce Your Triglyceride Levels
Elevated triglyceride levels up your chances of heart disease. To bring them down, cut back on sugar, carbs, and trans fats in your diet. Add regular exercise and make other tweaks to what you eat, and you might see improvements.
What are triglycerides?
Triglycerides are a kind of fat in your bloodstream. When you eat, any extra calories get turned into triglycerides, which are then stored in your fat cells for future energy use.
Levels of triglycerides
Although triglycerides provide energy for your body, having an excess in your bloodstream can up your chances of heart disease. Here are the recommended triglyceride levels for adults, measured in milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL):
Roughly a quarter of adults in the United States have high blood triglycerides, meaning their triglyceride levels are above 150 mg/dL (1).
Being overweight, not controlling diabetes properly, frequent alcohol consumption, and consuming a lot of calories can all lead to elevated levels of triglycerides in the blood.
How to reduce triglyceride levels
You can reduce your triglyceride levels by making different choices in your diet and lifestyle.
- Strive for a weight that’s good for your well-being.
If you consume more calories than your body requires, it converts the extra calories into triglycerides and stores them as fat. To reduce your blood triglyceride levels, aiming for a moderate body weight by cutting down on excess calories can be quite effective. Studies indicate that shedding just 5–10% of your body weight can noticeably lower triglyceride levels (2).
- Reduce your sugar intake
Many folks eat a lot of added sugar. The American Heart Association suggests sticking to 100–150 calories of added sugar a day, but on average, Americans are munching on about 308 daily (3, 4).
You’ll find added sugar in candies, sodas, and fruit juice. Too much of it can turn into…
