I had another blood draw yesterday for lipids, and my triglycerides are down 25% from two months ago. The only real change has been more movement (walking), though not yet as regular as it likely should be. They're still high, 276 mg/dL (150 is normal, up to 200 is "borderline"), but trending in the right direction.
This has been weird because it appears that most people who respond well to a statin, and my LDL "bad" cholesterol is "optimal" and below normal according to the lab, also see their TG's go down. Mine, stubbornly, have not, over the last three years, when I started taking rosuvastatin. Even when I was actively exercising, back in 2005, I registered a high 300's once. Admittedly, my diet was not good then. I had just cut beef from my diet, too. But it does seem like my normal has always been stubbornly high. I don't respond well to other drugs meant to treat the high TG's, so exercise is probably all I've got.
I've read a lot of medical journal papers on this subject, and it's interesting stuff. The 150 designation as normal is essentially the mean value across the majority of people, which feels kind of arbitrary. The problem is that LDL and triglycerides, typically, are high together, and LDL is known to be a risk factor for cardiac events. It's not clear that high TG's do the same. One study, a few years old, concluded that high TG risk for cardiac events levels off at 150. They are known to cause some hardening of arteries, and extremely high can cause pancreatitis (my related labs for that are all good). So it's not that I don't take it seriously, I'm just not convinced that science can show conclusively that the high-ish levels I tend to have are any worse than being at 150.
Anyway, the point is I need to get off my ass more. That problem is entirely psychological, and I talk to my therapist about that one.
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