High Triglycerides, how to lower levels without medication?

Javier Colomer 9 min. of reading Well-being habits Leave a comment

Today we’re going to understand how to lower triglyceride levels without drugs or medications, and what non-pharmacological alternatives exist to reduce TG.

This doesn’t mean drugs can’t or shouldn’t be used—they can when needed—but it’s important to know what non-pharmacological alternatives are out there.

Elevated Triglycerides as a Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factor

Aging healthily can be tough in the society we live in. Risk factors for disease build up year after year, drink after drink, cigarette after cigarette, ultra-processed food after ultra-processed food… inside our bodies.

This leads to a heavy burden for hundreds of thousands of people, who will see their risk of developing a civilization disease skyrocket during their lifetime.

We’re increasingly convinced that hypertriglyceridemia, meaning having triglycerides above the normal blood range (>150 mg/dL), is a cardiovascular risk factor completely independent of cholesterol.

Yeah, I know you’ve always been scared of cholesterol and triglycerides haven’t gotten much attention. But the game is changing

What Is Atherogenic Dyslipidemia and How Does It Affect Us?

The so-called atherogenic dyslipidemia, meaning the lipid imbalance in blood that increases your risk of stroke, ischemic heart disease, or other cardiovascular diseases, often includes a pattern of:

Low HDL-C,
High LDL-C, and
Elevated triglycerides.

This deadly trio is a marker of insulin resistance and metabolic damage, so if your blood work shows these changes, get moving now!

What Do Studies Say About Elevated Triglyceride Levels?

This meta-analysis of 29 prospective studies with over 250,000 people concludes there’s an INDEPENDENT association between high blood TG and cardiovascular disease¹.

Another meta-analysis of over 1 million subjects compared reference values of 90-150 mg/dL and found TG >150 mg/dL linked to a 15-25% increase in cardiovascular mortality².

Until now, we’ve ONLY paid special attention to so-called bad cholesterol or LDL cholesterol as a cardiovascular risk factor.

However, many other factors matter: inflammation, insulin resistance, genetic risk, cholesterol particle types, etc., and as we’re saying, triglyceride levels are important too

Lifestyle Changes to Lower Triglycerides

Lose Fat

Fat loss remains the factor that helps the most to lower triglycerides. If your TG are high, losing 5-10% of your body weight can reduce TG by up to 20%.

Roughly, for every kg lost, you get about a 2% drop in TG

Mediterranean Diet

Following certain dietary patterns also helps.

Specifically, a proper Mediterranean diet leads to a 10-15% drop in TG. This diet is high in MUFA (monounsaturated fats), PUFA (polyunsaturated fats), and fiber thanks to whole grains, fruits, veggies, nuts, and olive oil, all of which have lipid-lowering effects.

That said, living in the Mediterranean won’t guarantee you actually follow a Mediterranean diet…

In fact, it’s more likely that even living in the Mediterranean you follow a Western diet based on processed products that have a lipid-raising effect

Physical Exercise

Of course, we can’t forget exercise, which boosts muscle use of TG and their breakdown by upregulating lipoprotein lipase.

The TG-lowering effect of exercise depends on several factors:

Exercise intensity,
Duration,
Calorie expenditure,
Baseline levels.

But generally, we can say exercise can reduce baseline TG levels by 15 to 30%

Look, with what we’ve covered so far, we can cut TG levels by over 50% just through fat loss, Mediterranean diet, and exercise

How to Lower Triglycerides Without Medications?

Next, I’ll show you some nutrients that, combined with the lifestyle changes mentioned, can drastically improve health and quality of life.

Omega 3

The omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, specifically EPA and DHA, can reduce TG by decreasing hepatic VLDL output, particles that carry TG.

They also induce expression of the PPAR nuclear factor family, responsible for lipid and energy homeostasis

From what source? It’s always best to prioritize omega-3 from fish. About 4 g daily of fish-derived omega-3 achieves 20-30% TG reductions³.

However, when quality fish isn’t available or for people who don’t eat fish by choice (vegetarians, vegans) or dislike it, a good Omega-3 supplement can also help⁴

Cinnamon

Cinnamon increases expression of PPAR Alpha and gamma, which are the targets of two well-known drugs: fibrates (used to lower triglycerides) and thiazolidinediones (used as antidiabetics, though less so nowadays).

In this study, one teaspoon daily of Cinnamomum cassia for 18 weeks was linked to a 30 mg/dL drop, plus reductions in plasma glucose, total cholesterol, LDL-C, and a slight increase in HDL-C.

The effect is considerably smaller when TG levels approach normal, meaning higher levels, bigger effect

How to take cinnamon? Try adding a teaspoon to your coffee, mixing it with yogurt, or sprinkling it directly on your favorite whey protein concentrate, isolate, or hydrolysate

Cocoa

Clinical trials have shown cocoa can reduce TG by about 5%.

In a meta-analysis of 131 people, flavonoids in cocoa significantly improved lipid profiles

Heads up, don’t confuse terms. We’re talking about real cocoa, the bitter, pure kind

The sugary cocoa powders we know from breakfast aren’t cocoa. Commercial chocolate with <70% cocoa is not cocoa

Nuts

Some nuts, in the context of isocaloric energy intake, achieve interesting drops in TG and other lipids. Hazelnuts and pistachios are especially notable.

In this study with 15 middle-aged men with high cholesterol, reductions in VLDL, TG, and ApoB (all cardiovascular risk factors) were 30, 32, and 9%, respectively.

Other nuts like walnuts or peanuts also produce modest reductions. I always recommend them to my underweight patients.

An easy way to get extra calories without much effort is nut butters and creams: peanut, cashew, or almond. Check labels carefully and avoid products with added sugar or unhealthy vegetable oils (palm, canola, etc.)

Spice Blend

Some studies have checked the effect a spice blend has on post-meal triglyceride spikes compared to a meal without spices.

This study used a 14 g blend of these spices (cinnamon, clove, garlic powder, oregano, turmeric, rosemary, paprika, and ginger)

They found a 31% reduction in post-meal TG after the spiced meal compared to the placebo meal^5,6

Soy

The way soy achieves its lipid-lowering effect is twofold:

First, isoflavones, natural phytochemicals in soy, bind estrogen receptors, helping the isoflavone-estrogen complex move to the nucleus, where it regulates expression of proteins and nuclear receptors like PPAR, responsible for lipid homeostasis.
Second, some soy lipids like lecithin or specific phospholipids have a lipid-lowering effect by solubilizing cholesterol and promoting its excretion instead of absorption.

Available studies show decreases not only in TG but also in LDL and total cholesterol

Turmeric

Turmeric, especially some components like curcumin, has shown benefits in various metabolic conditions due to insulin-sensitizing, anti-inflammatory, and lipid-lowering effects.

In this study, 33 patients with metabolic syndrome took 1890 mg of curcumin extract daily for 12 weeks, achieving a 29% reduction in TG, 10% in total cholesterol, 12% in LDL, and a 6% increase in HDL.

So, turmeric or turmeric extract substantially improves the overall lipid profile⁷

Conclusions

It’s time to seriously study the effects different foods and their bioactive components have on our health.

The science of nutrition is complex, and it’s extremely hard to isolate the effect of one nutrient or component without the thousands of other variables in each person influencing health positively or negatively.

Still, there’s plenty of evidence that the foods mentioned here are beneficial and will help prevent or ease the chronic disease epidemic we face.

And I repeat, drugs have their clear and established role and shouldn’t be stopped or ignored

What we must know is that there are everyday foods that can help us reach our health goals (in this case, lowering triglycerides) and many others that push us toward disease (mostly ultra-processed products).

With this clear, we can make informed decisions. We can empower ourselves and start taking action. Hope this post helped you out. Keep empowering, folks!

References

Sarwar N, Danesh J, Eiriksdottir G, Sigurdsson G, Wareham N, Bingham S, et al. Triglycerides and the risk of coronary heart disease: 10,158 incident cases among 262,525 participants in 29 Western prospective studies. Circulation. 2007
Liu J, Zeng F-F, Liu Z-M, Zhang C-X, Ling W, Chen Y-M. Effects of blood triglycerides on cardiovascular and all-cause mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis of 61 prospective studies. Lipids Health Dis. 2013
Mozaffarian D, Wu JHY. Omega-3 fatty acids and cardiovascular disease: Effects on risk factors, molecular pathways, and clinical events. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2011
Balk EM, Lichtenstein AH, Chung M, Kupelnick B, Chew P, Lau J. Effects of omega-3 fatty acids on serum markers of cardiovascular disease risk: A systematic review. Atherosclerosis. 2006.
Tapsell LC, Hemphill I, Cobiac L, Patch CS, Sullivan DR, Fenech M, et al. Health benefits of herbs and spices: the past, the present, the future. The Medical journal of Australia. 2006.
Skulas-Ray AC, Kris-Etherton PM, Teeter DL, Chen C-YO, Vanden Heuvel JP, West SG. A High Antioxidant Spice Blend Attenuates Postprandial Insulin and Triglyceride Responses and Increases Some Plasma Measures of Antioxidant Activity in Healthy, Overweight Men. J Nutr. 2011;
Yang Y-S, Su Y-F, Yang H-W, Lee Y-H, Chou JI, Ueng K-C. Lipid-Lowering Effects of Curcumin in Patients with Metabolic Syndrome: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial. Phyther Res. 2014

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