The Rockefeller researchers also found that those study participants who were on the shrimp diet had significantly lower triglyceride levels than those on either the baseline or the egg diet. Triglycerides are a type of blood fat and have been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, when present in excessive amounts in the blood. One 18-year study of 460 adults found that people with triglyceride levels as low as 100 milligrams per deciliter were more than twice as likely to suffer from future heart disease than those with lower triglyceride levels.