High Triglycerides

I'm seeing what JPB is saying and nodding, and personally differing some from CJane..

I've perhaps an odd take - I prefer (though I don't always obey myself) to have protein early in the day to get my brain perking (heaped tuna or cooked fish salad w/mixed mayo on one small slice of toast, or scrambled eggs w/diced jalapenos tucked in small tortilla for breakfast - or the equivalent re your food choices

some protein in a salad or nothing all too carbohydrate-ful mid day, as I go off of salads for months at time, and can see CJane's thing about celery and peanut butter..

and carbs, with a bit of protein/more veg in the evening. That weighting of carbs to night time works for me, I sleep better.

I also have a good hdl/ldl ratio - actually great - and moderate triglycerides - not all that high, I should have it checked again.
In the meantime, with moving and getting older and not liking to make myself meals all the damn time, I now more often make soup that has a combo of protein, veg fiber, carbs, flavors.. and might eat it any time of day. Of course, I'm not presently gainfully employed, so I have more freedom. I explain that more to show that my 1-2-3 above doesn't always hold for me.

I should look something up for you - Mark Bittman had a column in the NYT or as part of his Bitten blog, about using less pasta and more vegetables, a sort of new way of thinking about pasta in contrast to what we know of the italian way, which is a mere coating of just the right sauce on the pieces of pasta that catch it. I think that was Bittman, and not Russ Parsons, another favorite food writer for me. Anyway, I'll search.

On pasta and glycemic index, we had some talk about that earlier. There's pasta and pasta. For example, pasta made with buckwheat flour (pinoccheria - sp?) .. and even that with 100% durum semolina probably has a glycemic advantage over ordinary.
If you make your own gnocchi, you can probably increase the GI.

I almost never eat sweets, although I had a breakfast cookie kick a while ago that I might go back to for a snack - a cookie with less sugar than the usual recipe, with lots of nuts and raisins and other dried fruit with the odd chocolate chip, usually in an oatmeal batter. And once in a while a visit to a local restaurant where the pastry is wonderful, which I usually get om a to go box for and then nurture.

My sin is that I like a glass or two of wine or dilute booze - and which I've no interest in tempering past the level I've already tempered it. My recent trick is to dilute cheap wine with dilute fruit juice and add a lot of ice for a kind of not completely horrible sangria. This is more amusing in summer.

In total contradiction to all this, I've recently bought the makings to concoct Limoncello... which should only be sipped in a thimble poured from a small bottle directly out of the freezer.

David Mendosa offers this glycemia index. You might browse the rest of the article and his entire site. I consider him very reliable, but the thrust is diabetes, not triglycerides. I wish I had more to offer than saying that all carbohydrates are not equal.

http://www.mendosa.com/gilists.htm

Continuing thanks to JPB...

Osso, how about wine spritzers (seltzer and wine)? I may start with those.

Roger. I found a lot of info from Mendoza. I became frustrated that his data were on foods that I didn't recognize (pre-made in Oz). I actually extracted his name from my google searches. I'll give him another go.

One thing is that not all carbs are alike. There is such a thing as the Glycemic Index. But ... the jury's still out on it: http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/nutrition_articles.asp?id=498
http://www.glycemicindex.com/
http://www.mendosa.com/

Personally I think that just going by numbers is absurd. But there is one truth behind it and I think that's where the real benefit lies: eat fewer processed carbs. But it's not exactly a new message -- e. g. less cake, more vegetables. I would also limit the pasta, switch it up to whole grain (lots of whole wheat pastas out there), limit the pizza, maybe try to replace it with other types of meals on occasion, up the protein and watch the sugar. I don't think there's much wrong with almond milk though you may want to cut it with a sugar free/lower sugar variety, particularly if yours is spiked with high fructose corn syrup.

For the diet site where I go, they don't discourage people from going with low carb but they also don't encourage it, either. Their main focus is to cut calories and to replace overly refined foods with things like fruits, and to cook one's own meals, which generally does that, anyway. Not a sexy idea, but one that helps. I know you already cook a lot, and I am not suggesting weight loss, but I suspect some weight loss could be a byproduct of eating fewer overly refined foods. And that should, in turn, help with the triGs.

More info on carbs:
http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/reference_carbohydrates.asp

Jespah - thanks!

Seltzer and wine? Sure - I do one or the other mineral water, those with actual minerals, that is, gerolsteiner or pellegrino or apollonaris (remembering that I liked gerolsteiner's list best) and some booze and squeezes of orange, or whatever, plus ice. I'm keen on ice, probably for old reasons re my taste buds. Takes a little getting used to, but I don't like sweet stuff.

segue;
3 days ago I saw my primary doc, BP was 156/131, she increased my Atenol by double. An hour ago I took my BP and it was 220/151; I have bean retaking it about every 15 mins and it's slowly going down. now 141/121. pulse 88.

now 147/109

Yikes! Dys, you're on double the meds and you spiked that high? Why? What did you do to bring it down?

I don't like whole wheat pastas on the shelf like I don't like ordinary whole wheat breads. Well, this is me. I like many grain breads plus seeds. I like hearth breads, usually sourdough. I despise your average whole wheat bread from the corner grocery, the worst of all bread worlds, to me (freak!)

But I do like rough tough pasta like buckwheat.

This all reminds me of a stop on the 101 drive south through California. Hopland is a good stop. There is the Bluebird Cafe, a don't miss. On the other hand, I started to want to miss it, re the food, much as I loved the place itself. So I looked across the street, to a wonderful cafe whose name I forget right this minute. Nothing in there comes without whole wheat bread. Osso removes the bread from dish..

(not that I defend white bread in most places, please, give me a break)

In the meantime, while I lived in the greater general area, Hopland got sophisticated. So I tried a cutie cafe. That was good, the dish I tried, which was the least expensive. I left hungry.

I learned to pass Hopland.

Geez, dyz, call her.

And when you're done calling her, let us know where your BP is.....

Adds, works with wine too, but I add a batch of fruit juice, in my case, from jumex, those canned thingies.

Skipping along from sillyness -

Dys, the word is Atenolol.

1) Are you sure about the thresholds? (70-130 for the normal range, 150 being high?) Both my German doctor and my American independently told me I can ignore triglyceride values as long as they're under 200. That would still mean you shouldn't ignore yours, but that you're not as far out of line as you seem to think.

2) From what I understand about the chemical pathways involved -- and I'm not a doctor, and this is not medical advice, yadda yadda yadda -- you seem to be taking in more carbohydrates than you can immediately burn. You're not seeing it in blood sugar levels because your pancreas is still producing enough insulin, and your cells aren't yet resistant to it. And you're not seeing it in cholesterol levels because you're doing a good job with the fat intake. But, you seem to be taking in too many carbs for what you burn. So, eat less of them, or burn more of them through exercise, or both.

3) What about alcohol? Alcohol has a strong impact on triglycerides.

4) Triglycerides are an indicator of problems with fat intake or carb intake. For what it's worth, I've never heard about them causing any problems.

g'morning, Thomas!

As with bp, the normal ranges of triglycerides were tightened a few years ago. The current guidelines are:


* Normal: Less than 150 mg/dL
* Borderline High: 150-199 mg/dL
* High: 200-499 mg/dL
* Very High: 500 mg/dL or above

My old clinical chemistry text book lists 30-200mg/dL as normal. Anything over 150 is now considered elevated (as is any systolic bp over 120 compared to 130 historically).

A few years ago my blood work came back similar to lk's except my total cholesterol was much higher, mostly attributed to a very high HDL. The recommendation I got from my doc was to get my triglycerides under 150, preferably under 100. I replaced processed foods and simple carbs with whole grains and complex carbs and my next triglyceride reading was 87.

The only problem I know of being caused by hypertriglyceridemia is pancreatitis, but not with the numbers that littlek is showing. Medical treatment beyond dietary changes is usually reserved for triglycerides of >500mg/dL.

Stupid, stupid, stupid....... I had three whole grains with mozzerella cheese for breakfast. Then I went to garden and didn't anything for lunch until now. I developed a migraine headache and didn't take any excedrine until I was done. Dumbass.

BP today, 124/92

Phew, much better, yes? Do you know what makes it spike?

good question, last fall I was getting an exam at the Pulminologists office when my BP went to 200/144 and he immediately had be taken downstairs to the ER (I posted about that "You can leave your socks on") anyway later that month I was telling my primary doc about the ER episode and she just laughed and said i freak out docs that don't know my history, anyway my primary tells me to not over-react unless the dystolic stays over 150 for 3 days. I know nothing.