Do you know what triglycerides are? While cholesterol gets all the attention, this fatty substance in the blood can be just as dangerous. If you don’t know what triglycerides, you may want to learn a little about them since a third of us may have high levels of the potentially dangerous substance.
A man has a check-up with his doctor. (via CNN.com)
According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report published in Archives of Internal Medicine, one-third of Americans have borderline or high triglyceride levels.
“I see it as a major problem that we’ve completely ignored this problem so far,” said Dr. Børge Nordestgaard of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.
When you eat, your body uses the calories it needs for energy. The calories that aren’t used are turned into triglycerides and stored in fat cells to be used later. The excess calories are stored as fat regardless of what kind of food you eat.
Here’s the key: If you regularly eat more calories than you burn, you may have high triglycerides. That’s pretty much the description of most Americans, so it’s probably a good idea to get a check-up. Otherwise you run serious health risks, as high levels have been linked to metabolic syndrome, heart disease, stroke, among other things.
(via: CNN)