In your body, triglycerides are a relatively prevalent kind of fat. They not only raise your chance of obesity but also heart disease, which may result in potentially fatal illnesses including heart attacks and strokes. According to medical professionals, your body stores excess calories in your fat cells as triglycerides, which it may subsequently utilize for energy.
Triglycerides are an essential source of energy for your body, but an excess of them in your blood might raise your risk of heart disease. Therefore, there are several approaches to reducing your triglyceride levels via dietary and lifestyle modifications.
Strategies for lowering triglyceride levels
Dr. Sudhir Kumar, an Apollo Hospital neurologist, suggests a number of dietary and lifestyle modifications to reduce your triglyceride levels. These include:
Cut down on your consumption of carbs
According to Dr. Kumar, restricting refined carbohydrates and increasing unprocessed, high-fiber carbohydrates may help dramatically lower triglycerides. White bread and other refined carbohydrates are high in calories and low in nutrients. Therefore, you need to consume meals like fatty salmon, cut down on added sugar, give up alcohol, and restrict your daily consumption of carbs to 50–60% of total calories.
aerobic workouts
Daily cardiovascular activity for thirty minutes, such as cycling, swimming, running, or walking, may reduce triglyceride levels.
Strength exercises
According to Dr. Kumar, lifting weights may improve the effects of aerobic exercise, even while it does not directly decrease triglycerides. Not only after an exercise, but throughout the day as well, stronger muscles burn more calories. Triglycerides are lowered when weight reduction from burning calories occurs.
regulated slumber
Studies show that excessive triglyceride levels are caused by uncontrolled sleep deprivation, maybe as a result of hormonal changes that enhance the creation of triglycerides. As a result, those who get fewer than five hours of sleep every day are more likely to have elevated triglyceride levels. Establishing a regular nighttime routine may help decrease your triglycerides and enhance the quality of your sleep.
Reduce your weight
One of the most crucial components of a healthy body is weight reduction. Additionally, decreasing 5–10% of your body weight may considerably lower your triglyceride levels by 20% if you are overweight or obese. The risk of heart disease may be considerably decreased by even decreasing 10 to 15 pounds, as well as cholesterol and triglycerides.
When cooking, choose healthy oils.
Replacing saturated fats such as butter, ghee, shortening, lard, or margarine with MUFA-rich oils such as canola oil, rice bran, and soybean oil is one of the greatest strategies to lower triglycerides.
Dr. Kumar suggests consuming more unsaturated fats from foods like avocado, nuts, seeds, and olive oil.
Give up alcohol consumption.
Alcohol raises triglycerides in the body and is high in calories and sugar. Additionally, alcohol causes the liver to produce more big, extremely low-density lipoproteins, which are responsible for bringing triglycerides into your body. Thus, it’s critical to give up drinking entirely.
Give up smoking.
Dr. Kumar claims that giving up smoking might reduce triglycerides and enhance general health. Smoking raises blood cholesterol levels, which raises the risk of heart disease
routine diabetes screening
If you have diabetes, you should have your blood lipid levels examined on a regular basis, or as directed by your physician. Blood must be drawn for these fasting tests at least nine to twelve hours after the last meal. Triglycerides should not exceed 150 mg/dl for health.
A few prescription medications and treatments often have adverse consequences, such as elevated triglyceride levels. Several of these include:
Diuretics
Progesterone and estrogen
Retinoids
Anabolic steroids