Relationship Between Triglycerides & Obesity

Obesity and triglycerides intersect in many areas of your health. Having elevated blood triglycerides increases your risk of heart disease, diabetes and problems with your pancreas, liver and kidneys. Excess triglycerides are typically found in people who have too much belly fat. Researchers say your risk of having a heart attack or stroke is especially high when triglycerides accompany obesity and high cholesterol. In addition, triglycerides may block a hormone that controls your appetite and calorie burning. To lower your triglycerides, you need to lower your weight and avoid fatty and processed foods, but if common lifestyle changes don't bring them down, you may need to take medicine.

What Are Triglycerides?

Triglycerides are a fatty substance that is produced by your body and is also found in foods. In the body, triglycerides are closely associated with cholesterol, another fatty substance. One of the main healthful purposes of triglycerides is to take excess calories from the food you eat and convert them to triglycerides. Hormones shuttle triglycerides throughout your body for energy between meals. Triglycerides also get stored in your fat cells for later use. Regularly eating more calories than your body needs can produce an excess amount of triglycerides. Your doctor can perform a blood test, such as a lipid profile, to determine your triglyceride level.

Having excess triglycerides is a condition called hypertriglyceridemia. When doctors see abnormally high levels of triglycerides, 200 mg/dL or higher, they may tell you that you are at greater risk of coronary artery disease, which could lead to heart attack or stroke. You may also increase your risk of acute pancreatitis. In addition, hypertriglyceridemia frequently accompanies diabetes.

Obesity in the United States

Obesity, clinically speaking, refers to having too much body fat. Among the ways physicians determine your risk for obesity is by measuring your body mass index, or BMI, which is a formula calculating your weight in relation to your height. If the resulting number is 30 or greater, you likely have the elevated body fat associated with obesity. More than two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, according to data published in the "Journal of the American Medical Association," and the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity reports that more than one-third of children are overweight or obese.

Obesity--Triglyceride Connection

According to MayoClinic.com, high triglycerides are an early warning signal for obesity and metabolic syndrome, which is a collection of health conditions involving too much fat around the middle and high blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar. When obesity and high cholesterol are found along with high triglycerides, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute states that doctors may need to intensify efforts to get you to lose weight and increase your level of physical activity, to lower your heart disease risk and a brush with diabetes.

Medical News Today reports that frequently eating fatty foods from popular fast food restaurants can trigger an inflammation response in the walls of cells of people with enlarged waistlines and high triglycerides. Repeated exposure leads to both fat gain and artery-hardening conditions. Not everyone who is obese has high triglyceride levels, but the two most often go together. Moreover, higher levels are found among people who are abdominally obese than in those who have elevated fat elsewhere on the body.

Moreover, researchers from the St. Louis University School of Medicine reported in the May 2004 issue of "Diabetes" that high triglycerides may block the work of the hormone leptin. Known as the satisfaction hormone, leptin tells your body to shut down your appetite after you eat and to burn more calories when you have too much stored energy. To work, leptin, produced by fat cells, has to cross into your brain and bind to receptors in the hypothalamus, but the researchers found that triglycerides "immediately" inhibit the transport of leptin. When leptin doesn't work, you eat more and burn fewer calories, disposing you to obesity.

Lower Your Triglycerides

The lifestyle modifications that promote good health in general can specifically help you lower your triglycerides, notes MayoClinic.com. The organization, along with the American Heart Association, states that you should lose weight, reduce your daily calories, limit sweet and processed foods, eat low-fat dairy, avoid saturated and trans fats, substitute with more mono- and polyunsaturated fats and omega-3 fatty acids, drink less alcohol, and exercise more. In addition, if you are a diabetic or have high blood pressure, you must take special care to keep these conditions controlled to help keep your triglycerides low.