What Does The Gallbladder Do For Your Body – Although the liver is hard at work producing bile to help with digestion, the gallbladder stores bile until it is needed. Shutterstock

Hanging from the right side of your liver is your hollow, pear-shaped gallbladder. When it fills with bile that helps digest food, the organ grows to 8 to 10 centimeters (cm) long and 4 cm wide.

What Does The Gallbladder Do For Your Body

Unless you have gallstones or had your gallbladder removed surgically, you probably think little of it. And that’s good. But if it causes you severe pain or other problems, you may need to discard this little organ.

Anatomy Model Gallbladder Liver

Although the liver is hard at work making dark green bile, which helps with digestion, the gallbladder stores bile until it’s needed, says Erin Gilbert, MD, assistant professor of surgery at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland. “It concentrates the bile into the most suitable form for absorption,” says Dr. Gilbert. – When you eat, bile is squeezed out of the gallbladder and passes through the common bile duct into the first part of the small intestine, the duodenum.

The liver produces 500 to 1,000 milliliters (ml) of bile per day, but the gallbladder can store up to ten times that bile and 30 to 50 ml of denser bile.

Gallstones form when one of two substances—cholesterol or bilirubin—becomes too saturated and crystallizes in the bile, much like sugar crystallizes when someone makes rock candy. Bilirubin is a brownish-yellow substance found in bile that breaks down old red blood cells in the liver. Your body normally removes bilirubin (which is the reason for the color of the stool) through the intestines. Stones formed from bilirubin are rarer than stones formed from hardened cholesterol and are more common in people with blood disorders such as sickle cell anemia.

What is the best diet for a healthy gallbladder? “Most gallstones are made of cholesterol, so a low-cholesterol and low-fat diet is best for gallbladder health,” says Kathleen Khandelwal, MD, a general surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic.

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Any diet that meets the requirements of “heart-healthy” is “gallbladder-healthy.” This means eating a diet that includes healthy monounsaturated fats, such as those found in nuts, avocados, seeds, olives, peanut butter, and the fats in these foods. Polyunsaturated fats should also be part of that balanced diet and are found in fatty fish, nuts, flaxseeds and vegetable oils. Avoiding foods that raise cholesterol levels also reduces the risk of gallstones.

How much you eat is just as important as what you eat. “If you eat one big meal a day, you’re more likely to develop a stone because the bile sits in the gallbladder for a long time before it comes out,” says Gilbert. The longer the bile sits, the more time the cholesterol in the bile has to become supersaturated and crystallize.

Along with a healthy diet, maintaining a healthy weight will help your gallbladder function better. Obese people have a higher risk of developing gallstones, but that doesn’t mean you have to go on a weight-loss diet: Rapid weight loss can also cause gallstones, says Gilbert. Losing weight is good, but “you don’t want to lose it all at once,” she says.

Another way to prevent stones is to control your cholesterol, including taking statins if you have high cholesterol, he says. Some evidence supports regular vitamin C intake to prevent gallstones, and surprisingly, drinking coffee also offers some protection against cholesterol-induced gallstones.

Symptoms Of Gallbladder Disease

In addition to those who are obese, have a poor or high-fat diet, or have high cholesterol levels, pregnant women are also more likely to develop gallstones, so they should pay more attention to fatty foods during pregnancy. People with certain blood disorders, such as sickle cell anemia, may be at increased risk of developing bilirubin stones.

Older adults and people of certain ethnicities, such as Native Americans, also have a higher risk of developing gallstones, and their risk of developing gallstones can double if they have a family history. Some medications, such as oral contraceptives, may increase the risk of gallstones, but the increased risk is small and should not prevent someone from taking the medications they need.

In fact, up to 12 percent of the population has gallstones, Gilbert says, but only a small percentage cause problems.

According to Gilbert, 80 percent of people with gallstones never have symptoms and don’t need to do anything about it. But if there’s a problem, you usually know it: the pain can be severe. “The pain is often described as sharp, stabbing, and very excruciating — a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10,” says Gilbert. The pain often occurs after eating a fatty meal because “fat is the strongest trigger for gallbladder emptying,” he says.

Gallbladder Cancer Treatment

Dr. Khandelwal says: Your gallbladder is located under your chest and radiates down your back. It can last for hours and can be accompanied by nausea, he adds.

But the pain can also be a dull ache on the right side, like an upset stomach or heartburn, Gilbert says.

The best test to detect gallstones is an ultrasound. “It’s quick and safe and gives us a lot of information about the appearance of the gallbladder, and it’s very accurate,” says Gilbert. An ultrasound technology can see gallstones or gallbladder irritation, such as a thickened wall or fluid around the gallbladder.

Some patients may be sent for a second type of test called a HIDA (hepatobiliary) scan, in which a radioactive chemical is injected into your arm and the technology watches what happens when it reaches your gallbladder. In general, HIDA scans are only performed in patients with other underlying conditions or symptoms of gallbladder disease but no stones on ultrasound.

Causes Of Gallbladder Problems, And When To See A Doctor

If it doesn’t cause symptoms, or you pass it along like a lucky few, then nothing will happen. “But if they’re causing trouble,” says Gilbert, the gallbladder may need to be removed. If a person is experiencing pain, biliary colic or an infection of the gallbladder called cholecystitis, gallbladder surgery may be performed.

“If stones go outside your gallbladder and fall into the duct, they can cause serious complications, so it’s important to take care of them if you have a problem,” says Khandelwal.

Escaped stones can cause blockages in the ducts, leading to jaundice or pancreatitis, Gilbert said. Any of these symptoms require a gallbladder surgery called a cholecystectomy.

If you need a cholecystectomy or gallbladder removal surgery, this usually means taking a week or two off work. Laparoscopic surgery involves one incision in the belly button and two or three incisions under the right rib cage, Gilbert says. Although this is usually an outpatient surgery, it does require general anesthesia as the surgeon fills the abdomen with carbon dioxide to expand it and make it easier to operate.

Ways To Improve Gallbladder Health

Expect three to five days of soreness, which may require narcotics, and avoid strenuous activity for at least two weeks, Gilbert says. People usually recover completely within four to six weeks and may experience diarrhea in the short term.

Maybe one to two percent of people have loose stools every time they eat foods that are particularly fatty or fatty, Gilbert says. Gallbladder removal, on the other hand, should not cause weight loss or weight gain and will not cause vitamin deficiencies.

Most people without a gallbladder should not expect any other long-term changes. “They can actually eat things they couldn’t eat before,” says Khandelwal. “The liver is making bile and dripping it into the stomach and intestines. It might take a little longer to digest fried chicken, but it doesn’t.”

The gallbladder stores bile, which helps the body absorb and digest the fats you eat. Diseases such as gallstones can cause problems with the functioning of the gallbladder…

What Is Gallbladder Cancer?

As with any surgery, gallbladder removal carries the risk of certain complications. These include bile leakage, blood clots and possible changes in digestion…

Gallstones occur when one or more substances in the bile become too concentrated to form a hard stone. Other Gallbladder Problems…

Some people need to follow a modified diet after gallbladder surgery. Follow this diet for effective gallbladder surgery recovery.

Gallbladder cancer is very rare, but people with gallstones are at a higher risk of developing this type of cancer.

Some Of The Common Gall (bladder) Stones

There is no surefire way to prevent gallstones, but there are things you can do to reduce your risk. Get tips on how to prevent gallstones.

Extra estrogen increases the risk of gallstones in pregnant women. Read more to learn how to prevent gallstones during pregnancy. It collects and stores bile, which is used to digest food.

Gallbladder stones may form. Your doctor may recommend removing your gallbladder

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