Managing Triglycerides While Gluten Free - Ask a Nutritionist

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BRITNI: Good morning and welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition's new midweek segment called “Ask a Nutritionist”. I am Britni Vincent, a Registered and Licensed Dietitian. On today's show, brought to you by Nutritional Weight and Wellness, we will be answering a nutrition question we've received from our Dishing Up Nutrition listeners. And the question today is, “Is it possible/how do you bring down triglycerides when you're gluten free?”

What are triglycerides & how are they made?

So I will take a deep dive into actionable items on how to do that, but let me just first give you an explanation of what triglycerides are in the body and then how they're made, and that will give you an idea of what to modify diet-wise. So triglycerides are one of two lipids in our body; the other one being cholesterol. And the difference between the two is that triglycerides are unused calories that provide your body with energy, whereas cholesterol is used to build cells, make hormones, help make vitamin D, repair areas of damage and inflammation in the body.

And triglycerides are actually the most common form of fat in our bloodstream, and the excess triglycerides that our body makes will be stored in your fat cells for later use. Triglycerides: when you look at your, your panel that you get from the doctor with all of your other lipids and cholesterol numbers, the triglycerides specifically are typically directly correlated to the amount of carbohydrates and sugar consumed.

So if your number is elevated, usually that means that you're, you are consuming too many carbohydrates and too much sugar for your body to be able to utilize. So I want to break it down, for those of you that like to know the why and the science a little bit behind it. I want to break down how this actually happens in the body. I'm going to touch on glucose and insulin, which you may have heard us talk about. But when we eat carbohydrates that turns into glucose in the body, and when that occurs, then our pancreas outputs insulin, and the insulin's going to grab onto that glucose in the blood and carry it to cells in our body.

And on our cells, we will have an insulin receptor. So the insulin will act like a key to unlock that receptor, carry the glucose into our cell where we turn it into energy. It's like you can think of it as a food source for our cells in a way. So that is what should happen in our body. But over time, if you are eating a lot of carbohydrates and sugar, that that whole function is not going to work as efficiently.

So over time, then the receptors are actually going to get damaged. So we will give the example of, you know, a big plate of pasta. Your body, most people's bodies, are not able to utilize all of those carbohydrates in one sitting. So you do that on a rare occasion, fine, our bodies are resilient, but you have high carb meals like that on a regular basis, then again, we can't utilize all of those carbohydrates, so that's going to cause excess glucose in in our body. And that's going to start to develop insulin resistance.

So when these insulin receptors are damaged and we're not carrying as much glucose into our cells, our bodies are trying to compensate. So at this point, we're going to output even more insulin to try to carry more of that glucose inside of the cells. But when we're insulin resistant, that still doesn't work very well.

And then our body often wants to consume more carbohydrates, more sugar, because our cells are really wanting more of that energy from the glucose. So as you can start to see, this turns into a little bit of a vicious cycle. And insulin is our primary fat storage hormone. And insulin creates a lot of inflammation in the body. So during this process is when we're going to make more triglycerides.

So when we have some degree of insulin resistance, there's a spectrum of insulin resistance. So when we have insulin resistance and we're not carrying that glucose inside the cells very efficiently, that excess glucose that's hanging out in the bloodstream, that is going to tell our our liver to make more triglycerides. So that's how that process works.

Optimal range for triglyceride numbers

You might be wondering what should your triglyceride number be? Optimally, it should be below 100 and above 100 could be a sign of insulin resistance in the body. And research has indicated that triglycerides are a strong independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

Ratio to consider as a risk factor for insulin resistance

I also think it's worth calculating your triglyceride to HDL ratio. A ratio over three is a strong risk factor for insulin resistance. So optimally you want that ratio, the triglyceride to HDL ratio to be close to one. So basically you want those numbers to be close together.

Avoid high carb/sugar gluten-free products

So I want to go back to the original question, which was “Is it possible or how do you bring down triglycerides when you're eating gluten free?” So being gluten free shouldn't have necessarily any impact on triglycerides. Where I think being gluten-free could possibly increase triglycerides is if you're eating a lot of gluten-free products. So gluten-free breads, gluten-free crackers, I mean they make basically anything gluten-free now.

Oftentimes the gluten-free options are higher in carbohydrates and are going to have more of an impact on your blood sugar than the gluten containing counterparts. And the reason is is a lot of those gluten-free products are made with rice flour, sometimes potato flour, which have a big effect on our blood sugar.

How do we reduce triglycerides?

Now that we have reviewed triglycerides in detail, let's talk specifically about how to reduce them. So it really again goes back to the amount of carbohydrates and the sugar that you're consuming. So if you eliminate the processed carbs and sugar or significantly reduce them, that's going to have a huge, huge impact on your triglyceride number.

Focus on vegetables as primary carbohydrate source

So whether or not you're gluten free, focusing on vegetables as your primary carbohydrate source is always going to be best. You get the biggest bang for your buck.

Limit concentrated carbs

And then most people are not able to utilize more than a half a cup of concentrated carbohydrate at one meal or snack. And what I mean by a concentrated carbohydrate are foods that contain more carbohydrates. They're more likely to have a bigger blood sugar effect.

So that would be starchy vegetables like potatoes, peas, beets, winter squash, concentrated carb would be grains, beans, lentils, and fruits as well. So having a half a cup maximum of one of those concentrated carbohydrate items at your meals or snacks, and then loading up on those other vegetables like cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower, leafy greens, that is going to help to reduce your blood sugar.

Eat protein and healthy fat with meals/snacks

And then as we talk about combining those carbohydrates with protein, you know, meat, fish, eggs, dairy, if you're able to tolerate it like yogurt, cottage cheese, cheese, and then combining it with a healthy fat like avocado, nuts, seeds, olive oil, olives, butter. The combination of the three is going to help to keep your blood sugar stable. Therefore, again, help to improve insulin resistance and reduce those triglycerides.

Reduce/eliminate alcohol

Reducing and eliminating alcohol can also make an impact on your triglyceride numbers.

Exercise helps reduce triglycerides

Exercise always helps. Even taking a 10 minute walk after a meal actually makes your cells more insulin sensitive, meaning we are able to carry the glucose into the cells more efficiently after you take a 10 minute walk after a meal.

How quickly can triglyceride numbers normalize?

The beauty of all of this is the triglyceride numbers can change pretty dramatically in a short amount of time. So I have seen somebody that has had a triglyceride number of 300 and something and in a matter of two to three months, reduce it to 100 and something. So basically she reduced it by 200 points in a matter of two to three months.

And she did what I just talked about: reduced, eliminated those processed carbohydrates upped the veggies, combined those carbs with protein and fat and, and those triglycerides really went down. If you are struggling to, to make these changes, know that we have lots of other podcasts on, on this topic of insulin resistance and glucose balance. We have lots of articles that you can refer to as well. A short answer to the original question is really just focusing on your carbohydrate consumption and reducing that is going to reduce that triglyceride number.

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