What Are Normal Triglycerides?

For adults, a fasting triglyceride level under 150 mg/dL (1.7 mmol/L) is the usual healthy cut-off. From 150 to 199 mg/dL is borderline high, 200 to 499 mg/dL high, and 500 mg/dL or more very high. A sample taken without fasting reads a little higher, so a European consensus flags non-fasting results from 175 mg/dL (2 mmol/L). High triglycerides add to heart risk, and very high ones risk pancreatitis.

This article is general information, not medical advice.

The Cut-Offs

The categories most US labs and MedlinePlus use for adults:

Category	Triglycerides
Healthy	Less than 150 mg/dL
Borderline high	150 to 199 mg/dL
High	200 to 499 mg/dL
Very high	500 mg/dL and higher

To convert, divide mg/dL by about 88.5 for mmol/L. Children and teens have their own cut-offs.

Fasting or Not

Triglycerides rise after a meal more than any other lipid. Even so, the 2016 consensus of the European Atherosclerosis Society and the European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (Nordestgaard and colleagues) found that after habitual meals they rise by at most about 26 mg/dL (0.3 mmol/L) on average, and that non-fasting values predict heart disease as well as fasting ones. It recommends non-fasting lipid tests routinely, and says a fasting test may be considered when non-fasting triglycerides are over 440 mg/dL (5 mmol/L). It flags non-fasting triglycerides as abnormal from 175 mg/dL and fasting ones from 150 mg/dL.

So when you compare results over time, note whether you’d fasted.

What Raises Them

MedlinePlus lists, as examples:

• Eating a lot of sugar, refined carbohydrates, and fat, and not exercising.
• Excess weight, poorly controlled diabetes, thyroid, kidney, or liver disease, and alcohol use disorder.
• Inherited conditions and some medicines, such as diuretics.

Lifestyle changes it suggests include limiting added sugar and alcohol, regular physical activity, and reaching a healthy weight.

Why They Matter

• For the heart. The 2018 US cholesterol guideline counts triglycerides that stay at 175 mg/dL or more as a risk-enhancing factor when deciding on a statin. High triglycerides also make calculated LDL less accurate; see Why Does Your LDL Cholesterol Depend on the Equation?
• For the pancreas. Very high levels can cause acute pancreatitis. The European consensus calls for urgent referral above 880 mg/dL (10 mmol/L).

Whether lowering triglycerides itself prevents heart attacks is less clear. In the REDUCE-IT trial, a high dose of icosapent ethyl, a purified form of the omega-3 fat EPA, lowered cardiovascular events by about a quarter in people on statins with triglycerides of 135 to 499 mg/dL. But in AIM-HIGH, niacin lowered triglycerides without reducing events, and in STRENGTH a mix of EPA and DHA showed no benefit. Why these results differ is still debated.

Following It in Kaizora

Triglycerides is a lab result on Labs, logged with its time, laboratory, and printed range, so a result outside the lab’s range is flagged. A draw’s results share their time and laboratory, so your triglycerides sit beside the LDL cholesterol your lab calculated from them. Add a note to say whether you’d fasted, since there’s no field for it.

The Short Version

• Fasting triglycerides under 150 mg/dL are healthy; 500 mg/dL or more is very high.
• A non-fasting test is fine for most people; it reads a little higher.
• Sugar, refined carbohydrates, alcohol, excess weight, and diabetes raise them.
• Very high triglycerides risk pancreatitis; how much lowering them helps the heart is still debated.

Sources

• MedlinePlus, Triglycerides Test.
• Nordestgaard BG et al., “Fasting is not routinely required for determination of a lipid profile: clinical and laboratory implications including flagging at desirable concentration cut-points,” European Heart Journal 37, no. 25 (2016): 1944–1958. doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehw152
• Grundy SM et al., “2018 AHA/ACC/AACVPR/AAPA/ABC/ACPM/ADA/AGS/APhA/ASPC/NLA/PCNA guideline on the management of blood cholesterol,” Circulation 139, no. 25 (2019). doi:10.1161/CIR.0000000000000625
• Bhatt DL et al., “Cardiovascular risk reduction with icosapent ethyl for hypertriglyceridemia,” New England Journal of Medicine 380, no. 1 (2019): 11–22. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1812792
• AIM-HIGH Investigators, “Niacin in patients with low HDL cholesterol levels receiving intensive statin therapy,” New England Journal of Medicine 365, no. 24 (2011): 2255–2267. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1107579
• Nicholls SJ et al., “Effect of high-dose omega-3 fatty acids vs corn oil on major adverse cardiovascular events in patients at high cardiovascular risk: the STRENGTH randomized clinical trial,” JAMA 324, no. 22 (2020): 2268. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.22258