Gallbladder in pink
Do gallstones improve or worsen on a low carb / high fat diet? It’s a common question with an interesting answer.
The gallbladder stores bile, a yellow-green fluid manufactured in the liver. The bile is used to digest the fat you eat. The question is: Is it good or bad for the gall bladder to eat fat?
The conventional fat phobic answer
The usual medical belief today is that fatty food can result in gall stones. This is because what happens if you already have gallstones in the gallbladder and eat fat: A gallstone can get stuck on the way to the intestines and give you a gallstone attack (pain in the top right part of your stomach).
The conventional advice is thus to eat low fat – and take pain killers if you get a gallstone attack. If the attacks continue the gallbladder is removed by routine surgery and the problem usually goes away. Probably with the side effect of slightly decreased ability to absorb fat and nutrients from what you eat (there is a reason we have gallbladders).
The conventional low fat advice rarely makes gallstone disease go away. Instead it often gets worse with time, until surgery is necessary. That is hardly a coincidence.
How to get gallstones
If you eat low fat less bile is needed to digest your food. More bile thus stays in the gallbladder. Long enough, perhaps, for stones to form. It’s been shown that people who (instead of fat) eat more carbohydrates are at increased risk of gallstones.
It all sounds logical. And there is even better evidence. The risk of low fat diets have been tested at least three times:
Studies of extreme low fat diets
- In a study of 51 obese people using an extremely low fat low calorie diet (just one gram of fat a day!) the gallbladder was examined by ultrasound before the diet and after one and two months. After one month four of the 51 participants had developed new gallstones. After two months more than one in four (13 people) had new gallstones! This on an almost fat free diet. Three participants needed to have their gallbladder removed during the study.
- A similar study examined 19 people eating an extremely low fat low calorie diet over 16 weeks. At the ultrasound examination at the end of the study five people (again about one in four) had new gallstones.
- A third study compared an extremely low fat diet with a diet slightly higher in fat during 3 months. More than one in two (6 of 11 people) in the group eating extremely low fat developed new gallstones. Nobody in the group eating more fat did.
Conclusion: Do you want gallstones? Avoid fat.
What happens if you do the opposite?
What if you were to do the opposite of the usual advice? Regularly eat food with fat in it? Then more bile will be used to digest the food. The bile ducts and the gallbladder will be flushed through regularly. Probably no stones will have time to form, and pre-existing stones might (if you are lucky) be flushed out into the small intestine.
The risk is that you will get gallstone pain in the short term – if you already have gallstones.
The question is: Do you want to think short-term (low fat) or long-term (higher fat)?
Does high fat food work?
It’s logical to think that food higher in fat can result in a gall bladder free from gallstones. But as far as I know no study has tested high fat food to people with gallstones.
On the other hand I know quite a few people who have experienced that their gallstone disease disappeared on a LCHF diet. Sometimes at the expense of initial gallstone attacks though.
A Swedish low carb site conducted a survey of its members. 145 people who used to have gallstones answered what happened since they started eating LCHF. Take the result with a huge pinch of salt as this kind of survey gives very unreliable answers:
This survey gives some support to the theory that high fat food can cure gallstone disease.
Gallstones and kidney stones
Patients with kidney stones get better advice. They are told to drink a lot of fluid, increasing the production of urine, so that stones do not have time to develop. If you already have kidney stones this advice could give you a painful kidney stone attack initially – but you are still advised to drink a lot.
The reason why we give the opposite advice when it comes to gallstones might be the obsolete fear of fat. If we were afraid of water instead patients with kidney stones might have been advised to avoid drinking to avoid kidney stone attacks. If they did not improve their kidneys would be surgically removed.
What do you say?
Have you had gallbladder problems? Have you tested a LCHF diet? What happened?
Mer
PS
Another common question is if you can eat LCHF if your gallbladder is already removed. The answer is that this seems to work fine.
Some people without a gallbladder might have to increase their intake of fat gradually to allow their body time to adapt. Otherwise the body might not have time to digest the fat which could result in loose fatty stools initially. However this rarely seems to be a problem.
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70 Comments
Anna
And Anna Page is 100% correct. A LCHF diet is not about increasing protein, actually instead reducing it gradually as weight loss goes on , in line with falling metabolic requirements.
The only start problem with high fat is that old stones created under (years of) low fat
eating can get trapped instead of dissolved if change is not gradual, as I elaborated in post #49
The above restores DAILY small bile flows that then can be gradually increased. Combine above with coconut oil and lots of good butter from grass fed cows and your carb consumtion will automatically decline.
But if you feel pain, wait and start again with less, maybe even half the fat. The important thing is to restore a daily flow and then build it up, so that the stones can DISSOLVE instead of be "pained out"!
After all, the bile has to carry out all the stuff that the liver has cleaned out from the body.
A low flow during long time (low fat diet!) makes stones form for this reason:
Crystallization risk increases with slower flow as concentration of bile salts and bound impurities then is higher as gradually more of it must be gotten rid of in smaller volumes. In other words low fat diet closes the operational gap from two sides.
A month or two on gradually increased high fat diet is the answer, as I see it!
Avoid fructose and alcohol during the build up time would help.
If you are "fatscared", olive oil is approved by all but make sure it isn't diluted with controversial omega-6 oils!
Becuse that shouldnt apear.. if one not eats a lot of fat at the same time!
Its your liver that excrete bile.
I know a lot of peopel that removed there bladder without any problems to digest fat.
That number flat out shocked me.
Doing a little math: Over the course of a lifetime, say 78 years, the number of gallbladder amputations will be 39 Million. That just over 1 in 10 Americans.
I looks like the low fat craze inspired by poor science in the 70s has had a horrible effect in the gallbladder cost to Americans.
Swedes have been very trusting following dietary advice coming from authorities. Something that seems to be changing rapidly today.
This ad for a gall flush is of interest as it points out a few important functions of bile flow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78d0im1MSHY
It is hard to see how proper bile flow without the gall bladder bile reservoir can function long term without complications.
Well after a blood test that showed a high white cell count, they admitted me. After a few days and now being able to see my gallbladder on an Ultrasound they believed I had an infection of my GB, as some infection produce a lot of gas the will interfere with the Ultra Sound. A few days after the antibiotics I felt better. Didn't get severe paing again just very mild.
I started introducing more fats and this seems to of helped. But I believe the reason for my trouble was after being on a HFLC diet then allowing a lot of sugar into the diet, which had me gain much weight. Then switching to a LFHC diet was the culprit. It probably allowed a bunch of gunk to stagnate in my gallbladder and become infected. I never had stones but had what they called sludge.
If our gallbladdesr are there to help with fats then fats have to come into the diet is my belief now.
What I have noticed is that as long as I'm eating a high fat diet, with low to moderate carbs, I'm fine. Whenever I eat high carb foods without fat, bam, I get an attack. The last week I've been pretty broke, so I was eating a lot of rice, with little else. I got really sick with gallbladder pain. Yesterday was payday, so I went shopping for the foods I normally eat. After one day of my normal HFLC diet the pain is gone, and I'm no longer feeling bloated and nauseous.
I started doing some research on this, which led me here. There are numerous other sources on the web, and I've found many medical journal articles that reference this phenomenon.
I've been eating HFLC despite the gallbladder disease, just because I believe it's the healthiest way of eating for me, but it's nice to have some confirmation that I'm doing the right thing.
As i came home from the hospital (the doc wanted my husband to stay for med observation) my first work was to search your homepage to get some more information about this gall stones stuff and how i can help my husband to get healthy. The explanations you give are making sense to me and i know one time more how lucky we are that we've found this kind of diet. Thank you so much! today i recognized how important your work is, because when it comes to trouble a layman like me is lucky to have easy access to such great and profound information. kind regards from snow-covered germany!
After a month or two all should have been flushed out well, is my understanding.
But that is with olive oil and natural fats, know nothing about omega 6 oils and margarins.
Yet low carb without added fat can cause all kind of problems. Proteins must remain the same, only fats to replace carbs. Else kidney and liver problems can follow from too much proteins.
But if one dont flush the bladder by eating enough fats regulary.. it forms to stones or pebles.
Some peopel have an heredity to form gallstones, they should be extra careful and eat enpugh of fat so there always is new and fresh bile in the bladder.
But that one seldome know before its a problem.
Some.. verry few peopel get stones anyhow, they have some failure that make them stone builders what they do anyhow.. but they are rare!
Another thing that can be good to know about liver gall bladder & bile is this:
"The efficiency of this system is enhanced by the reabsorption of bile acids from the intestine, minimizing the quantity lost in the faeces. Reabsorbed bile acids are then carried by the bloodstream back to the liver, where they are available for further recycling into the bile"
Another implication is that UNLESS the fatty food that triggers the bile is consumed together with (green) vegetables or not fully processed food, some parts of the bile that contains toxins meant to be excreted could be recirculated via the hepatic vein.
This seems to be a very good reason to why refined foods are higly unsuitable to consume as they contain no scraps to bind to. The liver cleanses itself through the bile!
As a daily liver/gall cleanse I take a 3-5 chlorella tablets each day followed by fat like a 1/4 of a glass with one eggyolk + cream and/or olive oil plus a dash of lemon or vinegar. Sometimes adding an activated charcoal tablet! The idea is to daily promote some extra bile flow combined with good binders to ensure that any dissolved toxins the liver may excrete are being bound so that they are prevented to recirculate. Unwanted recirculation prevents the liver's daily cleansing and may be one reason for gall stone formation.
Please read Amazing Liver cleanse by Anderas Mortiz.
http://innisrecipes.blogspot.com/2010/06/liver-and-gallbladder-miracl...
Do you want to make soap.. take som oil, ad acids and som salts!