Nutritional management of hyperlipaemia

Hyperlipaemia is a disease resulting from excessive mobilisation of triglyceride stores such that plasma clearance processes become overwhelmed. Consequently increased plasma triglyceride concentrations (>5.6 mmol/l), visibly cloudy plasma and a sick, anorexic or hypophagic subject follow. Epidemiological studies have identified many predisposing and triggering factors and the attentive carer or veterinary surgeon should be alert to such risk factors so that the disease can be prevented, or at least identified and treated at an early stage. Hyperlipaemic subjects are invariably in a negative energy balance, and nutritional management therefore plays a central role in both the prevention and resolution of the disease.