The Endocrine Society today issued a Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG) for the diagnosis and treatment of hypertriglyceridemia. Triglycerides are a type of fat found in the blood and are associated with cardiovascular risk. The CPG, entitled "Evaluation and Treatment of Hypertriglyceridemia: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline" appears in the September 2012 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (JCEM), a publication of The Endocrine Society.
The most common reasons for high triglycerides include being overweight, lack of exercise, the metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and familial combined hyperlipidemia, a genetic disorder that runs in the family. It results in high triglycerides, high "bad" (low-density lipoprotein, or LDL) cholesterol and low "good" (high-density lipoprotein, or HDL) cholesterol.
"There is increasing evidence that high triglyceride levels represent a cardiovascular risk and in addition, very high triglyceride level is a risk factor for pancreatitis," said Lars Berglund, MD, PhD, of the University of California, Davis, and chair of the task force that authored the guideline. "The guideline presents recommendations for diagnosis of high triglyceride levels, and recommendations for management and treatment."
Recommendations from the CPG include: