Do Complex Carbohydrates Elevate Triglycerides?

Complex carbohydrates are foods in your diet made from long chains of sugar known collectively as polysaccharides. Triglyceride, also known as triacylglycerol, is a substance that your body uses to store excess food energy, or calories, in your fat cells. If you consume more digestible complex carbs than you need, your body may eventually need to convert the excess to triglycerides for storage purposes.

Complex Carbohydrates

Your body can’t digest all forms of complex carbohydrates. Digestible complex carbs are also known as starches, and include grains, various types of bread and cereals, corn, dry beans, potatoes and peas. Indigestible complex carbs are also known as dietary fiber. You don’t get any nutritional benefit from fiber consumption, but it helps support the normal function of your body by encouraging the flow of waste materials through your digestive system, slowing the absorption of sugar into your bloodstream and helping reduce your cholesterol levels.

Digestion, Glucose and Glycogen

During digestion, your body breaks the bonds between the individual sugar units in starch and leaves behind smaller sugars that can make the passage from your small intestine to your bloodstream. The most important of these small sugars is glucose, which serves as the primary fuel source for your brain and a variety of other tissues throughout your body. After using what it needs for short-term function, your body converts any remaining glucose into a related, denser substance called glycogen. This glycogen is then used to fill up reserve spaces in your liver and muscle tissue.

Triglycerides

Triglycerides are nutrient-dense substances that contain fatty acids and glycerol, a member of the alcohol family. In addition to their role in fat storage inside your body, triglycerides are the main form of fat in the foods you eat. In your small intestine, dietary triglycerides are broken down, and fatty acids and glycerol pass into your bloodstream. After your body takes what it needs to meet its energy demands, any remainder of these substances is reassembled as triglycerides inside your fat cells and held to meet future energy requirements.

Glucose/Triglyceride Conversion

The reserve spaces for glycogen in your liver and muscles are relatively small, and under certain circumstances, the glucose supply in your body can rise above your glycogen storage capacity. If this occurs, your body will take the excess glucose, convert it into triglycerides through a series of chemical transformations, then store this newly formed material in your fat cells along with the excess triglycerides from your diet. If you ever run low on glucose and stored glycogen, your body will partially reverse this process and use glycerol — along with protein building blocks, called amino acids, and a red blood cell product, called lactate — to make new glucose to cover your needs until you eat more carbohydrates.