Low triglycerides are usually a sign of good health, not a problem. A healthy triglyceride level falls below 150 mg/dL, and most people who eat a balanced diet and exercise regularly land well under that number. There’s no official cutoff for triglycerides being “too low,” but in rare cases, unusually low readings can point to an underlying condition worth investigating.
What Counts as Low
The standard reference range sets anything below 150 mg/dL as healthy. Many labs don’t flag low triglycerides at all because the clinical focus is almost always on levels that are too high. Some researchers and clinicians start paying closer attention when levels drop below 40 or 50 mg/dL, particularly if the result is unexpected or accompanied by other symptoms. For young people between ages 10 and 19, normal triglycerides run below 90 mg/dL, so the baseline is naturally lower in younger populations.
Why Triglycerides Drop
The most common reason for low triglycerides is straightforward: a healthy lifestyle. Diets built around whole foods, regular physical activity, and maintaining a healthy weight all keep triglycerides in the low range. If your levels are low and you feel fine, this is almost certainly the explanation.
Several medical situations can also push triglycerides down. An overactive thyroid speeds up your metabolism, burning through fats faster than usual. Malabsorption conditions, where your gut struggles to absorb nutrients from food, reduce the amount of fat entering your bloodstream. Malnutrition and long-term fasting have the same effect. If you’re taking cholesterol-lowering medications like statins or fibrates, those drugs actively reduce triglycerides as part of their job. Fibrates work specifically by limiting how much fat-carrying protein your liver produces, which directly lowers triglyceride levels.
Genetic Causes
A small number of people have chronically low triglycerides because of inherited conditions. The most recognized is familial hypobetalipoproteinemia, a disorder that impairs the body’s ability to absorb and transport fats. It’s caused by mutations in the APOB gene, which provides instructions for building the proteins that carry cholesterol and triglycerides through your blood. People with this condition typically have low cholesterol across the board, not just low triglycerides.
Other rare genetic variants involve mutations in genes called PCSK9 and ANGPTL3, both of which play roles in fat metabolism. These conditions are sometimes discovered incidentally in adulthood when routine bloodwork comes back with unusually low lipid numbers. Most people with these genetic profiles don’t have obvious symptoms, though some experience difficulty absorbing fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K) or develop fatty liver over time.
Can Triglycerides Be Too Low?
For the vast majority of people, low triglycerides are protective. They’re associated with lower cardiovascular risk, which is why doctors spend so much more time worrying about high levels. But a few studies have raised questions about extremely low readings in specific medical contexts.
One prospective study of stroke survivors found that lower triglyceride levels at the time of hospital admission were associated with worse stroke severity and higher mortality at three months. However, once researchers adjusted for age, sex, and stroke severity itself, the link to mortality disappeared. This suggests low triglycerides may be a marker of poor nutritional status or frailty in people who are already seriously ill, rather than a direct cause of worse outcomes. In other words, the low triglycerides likely reflect the person’s overall health declining, not a problem caused by the triglyceride level itself.
Outside of acute illness, there’s no strong evidence that low triglycerides cause harm in otherwise healthy people. If your levels are low and you’re eating enough, feeling well, and don’t have symptoms of malabsorption (chronic diarrhea, unexplained weight loss, nutrient deficiencies), there’s generally nothing to worry about.
When Low Triglycerides Deserve a Closer Look
Your doctor might investigate further if your triglycerides are extremely low (roughly below 40 mg/dL) and there’s no obvious lifestyle explanation, or if you also have low total cholesterol and low LDL. The combination of all three being unusually low can suggest a genetic fat-transport disorder or a malabsorption problem.
Follow-up testing typically depends on what your doctor suspects. A thyroid panel can check for an overactive thyroid. If malabsorption seems likely, tests for nutrient deficiencies (especially fat-soluble vitamins and essential fatty acids) help confirm whether your body is struggling to absorb fats from food. For suspected genetic causes, specialized lipid testing and sometimes genetic testing can identify specific mutations.
If you’re taking a cholesterol-lowering medication and your triglycerides have dropped significantly, that’s the drug working as intended. Your doctor may still want to monitor your levels periodically, but the low reading itself isn’t a concern in that context.
What to Do With a Low Reading
If your triglyceride result came back low on routine bloodwork, look at it in the context of your full lipid panel and overall health. A triglyceride level of 60 or 80 mg/dL in someone who eats well and exercises is perfectly normal and, frankly, ideal. A level below 40 in someone who’s losing weight unintentionally, eating very little, or experiencing digestive problems is a different story and worth mentioning to your doctor.
You don’t need to eat more fat or change your diet to raise triglycerides that are low for healthy reasons. Unlike many blood markers, low triglycerides in a healthy person are a goal, not a problem to fix.