Posts Tagged ‘high triglycerides’
How Do You Lower Triglycerides With Omega 3 Essential Fatty Acids?
January 7th, 2010 | 
Author: It is now firmly established that there is a wide range of heart health benefits to increasing the amount of omega 3 essential fats (DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid)) in your diet. One of these important heart benefits, for anyone with high triglycerides, is that increasing your intake of DHA and EPA can help lower triglycerides.
Research has established that almost all of us have levels of Omega3 fats that are too low. Omega 3 fats are found in fish oil and the research also shows that by increasing our intake of fish oil in our diet by way of supplementation we also attract a range of heart and other health benefits.
Some of the important heart health benefits from increasing omega 3 in the diet include reducing blood pressure, reducing the growth of plaque in the arteries, reducing the risk of fatal heart attack and now also helping to lower triglyceride levels.
Triglycerides are a form of fat that can be manufactured in the body from the food you eat and exist in the blood. Having high triglycerides increases the risk of blood clots and can also lead to a lowering of your HDL (good) cholesterol. Basically high triglycerides are linked to coronary artery disease. And high triglycerides can also be a risk factor in some other diseases, for example diabetes.
By eating a diet with a high level of saturated fat and sugar you may be contributing to higher than normal triglyceride levels. And other risk factors are being overweight and excess alcohol consumption.
So for many people lowering triglycerides is very important, and they want to know how to lower triglycerides.
There’s a range of things that you can do to help lower triglycerides. If you eat less sugar and saturated fat in your diet, lose weight and reduce your alcohol intake these will all help lower triglycerides.
But it is now clear from the research that increasing your intake of omega 3 essential fatty acids by way of fish oil supplementation is an important part of a strategy to help lower triglycerides.
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition publishes many of the studies about the benefits of omega 3 and a statement on the website says that “A dose-response relationship exists between omega-3 fatty acid intake and triglyceride lowering” and also that “omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil decreased serum triglyceride concentrations by 25% to 30%,”.
The role of an increase in intake of omega3 essential fatty acids is sufficiently established so that the American Heart Association specifically recommends that patients who need to lower triglycerides take 2 to 4 grams of DHA and EPA every day, as fish oil supplements, under a physicians care.
This is excellent news for anyone struggling with high triglycerides and who wants to lower triglycerides naturally.
And there is also powerful evidence of a wide range of other health benefits from increasing your intake of omega 3 essential fatty acids, and for these reasons everyone, including people with high triglycerides, should seek to maintain a minimum level of fish oil in the diet.
Of course it is simple to eat more fish but unfortunately fish is contaminated with mercury and is generally very expensive. There are excellent fish oil supplements available which are not contaminated and which can be taken daily very cost effectively. Note however that not all fish oil supplements are of high quality.
I take Omega 3 capsules every day. To find out which ones I consider to be the best visit my website.
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Helping Lower Cholesterol And Triglycerides
Do you have a lipid disorder? With cholesterol and fatty acids and hypertension, the medical terminology can be confusing, to say the least. A “lipid disorder” is just a blanket term for high cholesterol and triglycerides, meaning that you have too many fatty substances in your body, which puts you at risk for heart disease, heart attacks, coronary artery disease and a stroke. This may all sound like bad news, but you can still live many healthy and happy years if you’re willing to make a few dietary sacrifices and take medication.
To get your triglycerides and cholesterol back down to a normal level, you will have to make some dietary changes. For people who have high cholesterol levels from eating too many fattening foods, cholesterol lowering can be accomplished by as much as 10-20% from dieting alone. Reducing calories to 1,200-1,500 for women and 1,500-1,800 for men will help you lose 2 pounds per week. When losing weight, you shouldn’t drink more than one serving of alcohol per day and you should be ingesting eight cups of water daily. Adding just 30 minutes of exercise per day, either all at once or in 3 intervals of 10 minutes, can work wonders for heart health.
Each day you should be ingesting 3-4 low fat dairy servings, like 1% milk or yogurt, 2-4 fruit servings including juice, 3-5 vegetable servings (of ½ cup or more), 6-11 bread servings, which includes pasta and rice and 6-8 fat/oil servings (choosing olive oil, canola oil or peanut oil, low fat salad dressing and miracle whip instead of mayo). Diet experts recommend adding fish oils to your weekly intake, whether it’s a daily fish oil supplement or salmon and tuna several times a week. As a satisfying snack, you can try a handful of nuts, raisins, a cup of tea or hot cocoa and a yogurt smoothie. By following these simple tips, your cholesterol and triglycerides levels should lower in no time at all!
If your doctor finds that you have an abundance of cholesterol and triglycerides, then there are several things that may be recommended. The first step is usually a diet/lifestyle change. Yes, you’ll need to quit smoking, start exercising a little more, lose some weight and give up some of your favorite foods, but keep in mind that its small potatoes compared to paying the medical bills when you have a heart attack. If lifestyle modifications do not significantly improve your heart health, then you will likely require medication. Statins are the most common prescriptions, but you may also try other drugs, like bile acid sequestering resins, cholesterol absorption inhibitors, fibrates, and nicotinic acid (niacin).
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Helping You Manage For A Healthier Lifestyle
High Cholesterol affects roughly 42 million Americans and an additional 63 million have borderline high cholesterol. Why is it that 50% of the population suffers from this potentially fatal problem? Some doctors believe that people simply aren’t educated about good fats and bad fats, nor do they see a doctor to be specifically screened for cholesterol trouble.
The bad cholesterol you’ve probably heard so much about is called Low Density Lipoprotein. The good type goes bad when it stops transporting and oxidizes from exposure to free radicals, leading to conditions like atherosclerosis. If you have 160mg or more of LDL per day, then you have a high level of harmful cholesterol. By contrast, high density Lipoprotein (or HDL) is known as “good cholesterol.” It helps one-fourth to one-third of blood cholesterol to be carried from the arteries to the liver by HDL. Doctors recommend that you have more than 40mg of HDL to lower your risk of heart disease.
Calories are converted to triglycerides before your tissues can use them as energy. However, like cholesterol, your triglyceride levels can be excessive if you are overweight, a smoker, are inactive or consume a lot of alcohol. Usually people with high levels of triglycerides have high LDL and low HDL levels. You have high triglycerides if your levels are more than 200mg.
There are a few common misconceptions about cholesterol. For instance, some people think that simply switching from butter to margarine will help. However, both are still high in fat and should be used sparingly. Secondly, just because your food labels brag that there is no cholesterol, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t high levels of saturated fat. Be sure to check labels before you go gobbling! Thirdly, being young or on medication doesn’t prevent you from needing to exercise and watch what you eat. Meeting with a dietician is a short, painless experience that can add many years to your life!
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