Chevy Chase, MD—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:
The Hormone Health Network has published a companion patient guide to this CPG. The patient guide, which can be found online at http://www.hormone.org/Resources/upload/PG-Hypertriglyceridemia-web.pdf , explains how hypertriglyceridemia impacts the body and discusses treatment options.
Other members of The Endocrine Society task force that developed this CPG include: John D. Brunzell of the University of Washington; Anne C. Goldberg of Washington University School of Medicine; Ira J. Goldberg of Columbia University in New York; Frank Sacks of Harvard University School of Public Health in Boston, MA; Mohammad Hassan Murad of The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN; and Anton F. H. Stalenhoef of Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre in The Netherlands.
The Society established the Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG) Program to provide endocrinologists and other clinicians with evidence-based recommendations in the diagnosis and treatment of endocrine-related conditions. Each CPG is created by a task force of topic-related experts in the field. Task forces rely on scientific reviews of the literature in the development of CPG recommendations. The Endocrine Society does not solicit or accept corporate support for its CPGs. All CPGs are supported entirely by Society funds.
Founded in 1916, The Endocrine Society is the world's oldest, largest and most active organization devoted to research on hormones and the clinical practice of endocrinology. Today, The Endocrine Society's membership consists of over 15,000 scientists, physicians, educators, nurses and students in more than 100 countries. Society members represent all basic, applied and clinical interests in endocrinology. The Endocrine Society is based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. To learn more about the Society and the field of endocrinology, visit our site at www.endo-society.org . Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/#!/EndoMedia .
The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism