Elevated liver enzymes don't cause high triglycerides, but the two conditions can indicate that you suffer from closely related conditions: high cholesterol and fatty liver disease. If your doctor tells you that you have one or both of these conditions, you may need to lose weight and make some changes to your diet to reduce your risk of more serious health conditions that can result.
Triglycerides
When you have a blood test to measure your triglyceride level, it's simply measuring the amount of fat in your blood. When you digest the food you eat, some of the fat winds up in your blood stream as triglyceride particles. Lower levels of triglycerides are better -- if your level falls below 150 mg/dL, your doctor will likely consider that acceptable. However, if you're already at risk for heart disease, you may need to lower your triglycerides more than that.
Liver Enzymes
Liver enzyme tests indicate whether your liver is working properly. Elevated liver enzymes on a routine blood test can result from several different conditions. However, abnormal tests most often indicate fatty liver disease, a condition in which your liver swells with accumulated fat. Your doctor can't definitively diagnose fatty liver disease without a liver biopsy, which involves taking a small sample of liver tissue to examine under a microscope. However, he may be able to tell you the likelihood that you have it based on your liver enzyme tests and a physical examination.
Details
Fatty liver disease and high triglyceride levels frequently occur together, but one doesn't cause the other. Weight gain and obesity cause both conditions. In fact, if you're obese, it is extremely likely that you have fatty liver disease, and you probably have a high triglyceride level as well. Obese people often suffer from insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes, and insulin resistance seems to promote both fat accumulation in the liver and elevated triglyceride levels.
Considerations
Elevated liver enzymes and high triglycerides appearing together indicate that you need to work to reduce your risks of more serious conditions down the road. Fatty liver disease can eventually lead to liver failure, and high triglycerides indicate a heightened risk for cardiovascular disease, heart attack and stroke. Losing weight and adopting a healthy diet with minimal saturated fat and plenty of vegetables, fruits and whole grains can reduce your risk for complications from the conditions signaled by your abnormal lab test results.
