Triglycerides

Triglycerides are a blood fat tied to diet and metabolism. This score estimates your inherited tendency toward higher or lower triglyceride levels.

What this triglyceride score reads

This is PGS000066, from the same 2019 Nature Communications study of lipid genetics across African, Asian and European cohorts. It sums 101 common variants associated with blood triglycerides at genome-wide significance, drawn from a meta-analysis of 331,368 people, about 82% of them of European ancestry.

Triglycerides are the fat your body packages for storage and transport, and they are the most diet-sensitive of the standard lipid measures, which shapes how much a genetic score can be expected to explain.

How well it predicts triglycerides

In the study's own validation, the score correlated with measured triglycerides at r = 0.20 to 0.24 in European-ancestry cohorts, about 4% to 6% of the variation between people. In an East Asian cohort the correlation was 0.14, and in a sub-Saharan African cohort 0.06, close to nothing.

That is a low ceiling, and it is not a flaw in the score so much as a fact about the trait. Triglycerides move within weeks in response to alcohol, refined carbohydrate, body weight and untreated diabetes, and a single measurement in the same person varies with how recently they ate.

How to read a high or low score

A high percentile means your inherited leaning is toward higher fasting triglycerides than most of the reference group. It does not tell you your current level, and because triglycerides respond so strongly to short-term habits, the genetic leaning is often swamped by what you have been eating and drinking.

If the number itself matters to you, a fasting lipid panel measures it for a few dollars. The genetic score is context for why your measured value sits where it does, not a replacement for measuring.

What this score does not capture

The rare severe causes are absent. Familial chylomicronemia syndrome, caused by variants in LPL and its partners such as APOC2 and GPIHBP1, can drive triglycerides to levels that risk pancreatitis, and it is not read here. Very high measured triglycerides deserve medical attention regardless of what a polygenic score says.

Secondary causes are also outside the score entirely: uncontrolled diabetes, hypothyroidism, kidney disease, heavy alcohol use, and drugs including corticosteroids and some antiretrovirals all raise triglycerides.

Ancestry and accuracy

The drop across populations is unusually stark for this score: r = 0.20 to 0.24 in European-ancestry cohorts against r = 0.06 in the sub-Saharan African cohort, roughly a quarter of the predictive signal. Prediction decays with genetic distance from the training population, and the training data here was overwhelmingly European.

Variants in this score you can read on their own

This score includes variants that this site also explains individually, where you can see what each genotype means on its own: APOE type (Alzheimer's & cholesterol) (rs7412) · Caffeine metabolism speed (rs4410790) · Statin-induced myopathy risk (rs4149056).

How much of this score your file covers

All 101 variants in the published score are present in a standard consumer DNA file, so this reconstructs the published score in full.

Common questions

Can I lower triglycerides if my genetic score is high? Triglycerides are among the most modifiable blood measures there are. Reducing alcohol, cutting refined carbohydrate and added sugar, losing excess weight and treating diabetes all lower them substantially, and none of that is constrained by a polygenic score that explains under 6% of the variation.

My triglycerides are high but my score is low. Which is right? The measurement. A score this weak cannot rule anything in or out, and persistently high measured triglycerides are worth discussing with a doctor, including checking for causes like thyroid or kidney disease, alcohol intake and diabetes.

Related

Adult lactose digestion · Caffeine metabolism speed · Folate metabolism (MTHFR gene) · HDL cholesterol · LDL cholesterol · Secretor status (norovirus resistance & B12) · Total cholesterol