If you have high triglycerides, you need to learn how to reduce your level. Once you are aware of the common ways to reduce high triglycerides, you will also be able to reduce your chances of having heart disease, a heart attack, or a stroke. Triglycerides can cause hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis), which in turn means that you can develop all sorts of other complications.
Understanding Triglycerides:
Triglycerides are part of cholesterol. They are fatty acids (lipids) that the body uses for energy. When you consume carbohydrates, the body transforms them into glucose. Once a cell has as much energy as it needs, excess glucose travels go to the liver, which converts it into glycogen, which are stored in the muscles. If there is too much glycogen, it goes back to the liver, and they get converted into triglycerides, which the body then stores as fat.
Some fat, however, stays in the blood stream. Add triglycerides to this mixture, and the blood will thicken. This increases the chance of clots, possibly leading to stroke or heart attack. This is why everybody needs to be aware of the common ways to reduce high triglycerides.
Common Ways to Reduce High Triglycerides:
The focus has to be on lowering your cholesterol level, as triglycerides are part of that. Hence, you have to make lifestyle changes, take supplements, and perhaps even medication that help to lower LDL (bad cholesterol) and raise HDL (good cholesterol) levels. In so doing, your triglyceride level should drop as well.
Your starting point has to be to make some lifestyle changes. What you eat is directly related to what goes into your blood stream. Hence, you should start by switching to a low carb diet. Doing so means that glucose can be turned into fat more quickly. Similarly, you should avoid sugars, because sugar is converted into glucose, and then into triglycerides.
There are also foods and food groups that you should add to your diet because they are known to lower the triglyceride level. Specifically, foods that are high in vitamin C and foods that have a lot of omega 3 fatty acids within them can help to lower overall cholesterol levels and triglycerides as well. You could consider squash, tofu, shrimp, soybeans, tuna, salmon, walnuts, and flaxseeds, for instance.
You also need to make sure that you exercise enough. When you eat any type of food, what your body does is to use that as energy. If you don’t use that energy, your body will store it for later use. It does that by converting it into fats, which you will find more and more difficult to get rid off as you continue to eat and not burn the energy the food provides you with. It has been said again and again that a healthy lifestyle means eating the right foods at the right time, and it means getting plenty of exercise. That doesn’t mean you can’t indulge in some chocolate cake every once in a while, it simply means that you have to focus on the healthy things first.
