Why Should I Save My Gallbladder? What Does it Do?

Summary
Webpage: https://www.gallbladderdiet.com
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In this episode, Olivia Haas, a gallbladder nutritionist, discusses the importance of the gallbladder, its functions, and the role of bile in digestion. She explains the symptoms and causes of gallbladder dysfunction and diseases, including gallstones. Olivia emphasizes the significance of diet in maintaining gallbladder health and offers practical dietary strategies. She also highlights the importance of seeking support from healthcare professionals for those dealing with gallbladder issues.

Transcript

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Hello fellow gallbladder warriors. Let's chat about the basics today. What is the gallbladder and what functions does it play in the body? If you are anything like me, you may not have become familiar with the gallbladder until you ended up in the ER. This is actually a very common scenario. Truthfully, I had no idea what the gallbladder was nor what purpose it served in my body in my first ER visit. Often considered a small and vital organ, but it's actually in our bodies for a reason. And if you struggle with gallbladder issues too, you know that it can certainly be very painful. So even though it's small, it is very mighty and very painful. My name is Olivia Haas. I am a gallbladder nutritionist, fellow gallbladder warrior with history of gallbladder sludge and polyps. So in this episode, I wanna break down a little bit more about what the gallbladder actually does in our body. So if we're on this journey to save our gallbladder, we can understand maybe why we're even fighting to save it in the first place. why it's a vital organ, the importance of it, early signs of dysfunction, and of course I want to leave you with some tips to start improving your gallbladder health. So let's dive in. All right, so what is the gallbladder? The gallbladder is a tiny but mighty pear-shaped organ that's snuggled in the lower right lobe of the liver. The gallbladder is part of a whole system called the biliary system or biliary tract, and the biliary system is a series of ducts that resembles kind of a tree within the liver, gallbladder, and pancreas. the gall butter liver and bile ducts basically work together to control the flow of bile. Bile is a soapy like substance that is made of cholesterol, bilirubin, bile acids, phospholipids, water, and minerals. If you have gall butter issues or no gall butter, it's really important we understand the role of bile, which we'll talk about in today's episode. Bile is made in the liver and it passes through into the gall butter where it's stored. concentrated and released when you consume fats. Biles main role is to aid in digestion and absorption of fats, but it also serves so many other cool functions in the body, which we'll talk about here. So basically what happens is the gallbladder is signaled by hormones and cells in your duodenal walls will signal hormone CCK and hormone CCK will tell your gallbladder to contract, release bile and it signals the muscular sphincter of Audi to relax. When hormone CCK is not signaled, the gallbladder relaxes and it'll fill up with bile. The only issue here is that if we already have a liver that's producing cholesterol supersaturation of bile, basically sludgy bile, that bile will sit in the gallbladder for too long because possibly we're not eating meals, you know, there's other varying issues with the function, and we have a higher risk of gallstones and sludge to develop. So despite the gallbladder being deemed as an unimportant organ, It serves essential roles in your digestion, detoxification, and bile acid metabolism. And if you removed your gall butter as well, it's really important we focus in on bile. Bile serves many important roles in the body, which we're gonna talk about here in a minute. So when you consume a fatty meal, the liver will continuously produce bile. However, bile is not needed in large amounts all the time. Excess bile is redirected to the gall butter, and here the bile gets. concentrated and stored until it's required and it starts the process of things like fat digestion. So, bile is important for fat digestion, absorption of fat soluble vitamins. It also helps protect a healthy gut, supports cholesterol metabolism, detoxification, blood sugar balance, motility, and hormone balance. So, when you eat a fatty meal, your gallbladder contracts, releases the concentrated bile through the common bile duct into your small intestine. The bile helps break down the fats into smaller droplets, increasing the surface area, basically spreading it out, then your pancreatic enzymes come in and finish fat digestion. So bio serves important role in absorption of fat soluble vitamins and fatty acids. So this is one reason why typically people with gallbladder issues struggle with tolerance of fats and fat digestion. Bio is also a form of antimicrobial that helps protect the small intestine from things like pathogens, impaired bio flow from either gallbladder dysfunction, or maybe we had our gallbladder moved, can often lead to varying gastrointestinal issues, with small intestinal bacteria overgrowth or SIBO being the most common gastrointestinal issue among individuals with gallbladder liver issues, typically because of this poor bio flow. Bio also helps break down cholesterol, so changes in bio flow metabolism can contribute to higher cholesterol levels in individuals with gallbladder problems or post-cholestectomy. So really supporting that bio flow in your liver health, can help improve cholesterol levels in both cases. Bios also form a detoxification. It helps break down and move substances like excess toxins, cholesterol, and hormones from the body. Typically, individuals with gallbladder liver issues struggle with phase two liver detoxification, so this is sometimes why we really struggle with chemical sensitivities. Bio also is a lubricant. So if you are struggling with constipation, it's because there's a lack of bio flow. Bioproduction and secretion are needed to help digest fats and maintain regular bowel movements. Change in bile due to gallbladder dysfunction or cholecystectomy can often result in constipation. So for me personally on my gallbladder journey, I was following an ancestral based diet, higher fat, lots of raw dairy, raw cheeses, wild game meats, and I felt great initially, but then I started struggling with constipation and it was an early warning sign for me. Before I started dealing with gallbladder attacks, I just totally missed it. So constipation is typically an early warning sign that there's a lack of bio flow and poor digestion of fats. As you can see, the gallbladder is a regulator of bile and it plays an important role in biometabolism. So let's chat about what goes wrong when bio flow is impaired either due to poor gallbladder health or loss of concentrated bile with no gallbladder. So if we struggle with gallbladder dysfunction or poor bio flow in general, we typically are gonna have more fat malabsorption symptoms. We will experience more indigestion after fat. So whether it's bloating, reflux, diarrhea, constipation, whatever it is, feeling nauseous, we struggle to digest those fats. And after a fatty meal, we may experience any of these varying gastrointestinal issues. Our bowels. So our bowels will often float. They may be loose, oily stool. You'll see some oil in your stool, clay colored stool, light colored stool. That can be indication we're struggling to digest fats. There's poor bioflow. moodiness, irritability, changes in our hormones, lots of carb cravings, because we're not digesting, absorbing our fats, acne, maybe on your forehead, along the hairline, bad breath, itchy skin, dry skin, brittle nails, and hair, because we're not absorbing our fat soluble vitamins. These are typically early warning signs that we have poor bioflow and there's gallbladder dysfunction. Once the gallbladder starts to become symptomatic or sometimes diseased or chronic, we might start to experience gall butter attacks or chronic gall butter attacks. So while the gall butter, you know, it does play a vital role in digestion, it is a small organ that can be very susceptible to different issues in the body and different causes from environmental toxins, poor estrogen clearance, poor methylation, poor detoxification. It can result in a lot of these symptoms of intolerances to fatty foods, but then what can happen for a lot of people is they start to develop conditions associated with gallbladder disease. Unfortunately, with the rise of metabolic syndrome, we are going to see a rise of gallbladder and fatty liver issues. Gallstones have become one of the leading causes of gastrointestinal issues today. Gallbladder disease can include various conditions such as gallstones or biosludge. Gallstones and biosludge typically develop from cholesterol supersaturation produced in the liver So there's something causing issues with the liver. Again, it can be from our standard American diet, eating a lot of processed foods, higher fat diets, poor methylation, insulin resistance, all these things can drive a lot of liver stress and produce cholesterol supersaturation in the bile. The bile goes into the gallbladder and it may stay there for too long and that bile will become thick, it forms sludge, and then that sludge will eventually form gallstones. So that's the most common form. And then we have a functional disorder of the gallbladder, which is often called biliary dyskinesia, which is a poor functioning gallbladder where it's not contracting well. Again, to various causes, gallbladder inflammation, viral bacterial infections, poor methylation. It can sometimes be mold, hormone issues, inflammation in general in the body, food allergies like gluten can really mess with the gallbladder function. So in individuals with biliary dyskinesia, hyperkinetic gallbladder, they typically have a function problem. So there's usually an issue with bile output. And then polyps, polyps typically form from excess estrogen, inflammation, or possibly poor cholesterol metabolism. Polyps generally don't cause symptoms, but you certainly want to monitor them with routine ultrasounds to check on the growth. If they grow too large, surgery is usually advised. But typically when people have polyps and they're reporting gallbladder attacks, As someone who has helped thousands of individuals over the years with gallbladder issues, usually there's an issue with the function. And that was certainly my case as well. Gallbladder inflammation in general can cause gallbladder symptoms, gallbladder attacks. Sometimes it can be the reason for biliary dyskinesia or poor function gallbladder. So you do want to work with a gastroenterologist if you suspect gallbladder issues. If you have any of these conditions, you want to discuss the best option for you. I've learned through my experience with gallbladder sludge, biliary dyskinesia, and polyps that your diet is the foundation and eating gallbladder friendly meals are key to helping support many of these conditions. And we wanna eat in a way as the foundation to address many of the causes of gallbladder problems in the first place. So overall, gallbladder really does serve a vital role in your digestive process and detoxification, it's vital. It really does ensure that healthy fat digestion is being optimized and we are detoxing. While it's not considered an essential organ, as we can see, it's actually in our bodies for a reason. And with the gall butter playing a significant role in digestion, detoxification, overall metabolic processes, if you are a candidate to try to work to save your gall butter, if you're not symptomatic, if your gall butter's not sensitive, you're not dealing with infections, things like that, You can certainly work to save your gallbladder if possible, but of course discuss if this route is best for you with your medical provider. So if possible, and depending on the person, we may feel that we want to embark on a journey to save our gallbladder. As a fellow gallbladder warrior, I wanna leave you with some simple tips to help get you started that really helped me. Tip number one, we wanna focus in on reducing gallbladder stressors in the diet. And when we look at supporting our gall butter, we are also talking about our liver. Typically, gall butter liver issues go hand in hand. Gall butter issues often precede poor liver health. So all of these tips that I'm gonna talk about are gonna support your gall butter and liver. At the foundation, when we talk about diet, we wanna reduce down any gall butter liver stressors in the diet that are gonna cause the issues to promote gall butter and liver disease in the first place. So obviously processed foods are going to promote gallstone formation. They are going to lead to that cholesterol supersaturation in the bile. They're gonna lead to toxic overload. They're gonna mess with the gallbladder motility. So as a simple tip, we wanna reduce down processed foods in our diet, swap them out for whole foods as much as possible, eat more meals at home. And then picking back off that, diets high in refined sugars, vegetable oils are going to increase that toxic load, drive poor methylation, contribute to cholesterol supersaturation and bile and poor gallbladder motility. Refined sugars and vegetable oils are often found in processed foods. They are the main drivers of chronic disease today and they are the main drivers of gallbladder and liver issues. So we do wanna make sure that we read our food labels, we try to eat more foods at home to help support this. And then diets low in fiber. Fiber helps support detoxification. It's gonna help support gut motility. It's gonna help support a healthy gut microbiome. And diets low in fiber that may be higher in fat and protein can often be a leading cause of gall butter and liver issues. So we wanna work on swapping these out, these stressors in the diet. And then we wanna be intentional with our foods and focus in on key nutrients that we wanna include in the diet that help support gall butter, liver health. and work on addressing the cause of gallbladder issues in the first place and ultimately keeping our bodies as healthy as we can. So foods that we want to include more in the diet, as I mentioned, fiber. Fiber acts as a natural binder. It's going to bind to excess cholesterol, estrogen, toxins, and hopefully if we're having regular bowel movements, it's gonna pull it out through our stool so we're not getting it reabsorbed back to the liver and it's causing the vicious cycle of the cholesterol supersaturation. So fiber is found in things like fruits, veggies, whole grains, legumes, lentils. Then we wanna include bitter foods. Bitter foods are gonna really help support bioproduction, secretion, help aid in fat digestion and tolerance to fats and support our liver. And those are things like arugula, radish, radicchio, apple cider vinegar. Those are kind of my go-tos. We wanna include lean animal protein that has rich amino acid that has key nutrients that are going to support phase two liver detoxification and methylation. And then certainly we want to focus in on hydration. So bile is composed primarily of water, which accounts for about 95 to 97 % of its total volume. The rest really consists of bile salts, bilirubin, cholesterol, phospholipids, electrolytes, and organic molecules. So if you are dehydrated, you can imagine how this is going to lead to cholesterol supersaturation in bile and promote gallstones. It's going to impair detoxification. Thus, hydration is critical component to support gall butter, liver health, and bio flow. So if you struggle with hydration, some little tips to help. On Amazon, can purchase some large, like glass or steel water bottles. Fill them up first thing in the morning. Put them in a spot like your desk, in your car, that they're readily available for you to take sips. Set timers on your phone. Just set timers to remind you to eat, to drink water, all those foundational things. And then as a bonus, can add electrolytes, add some minerals to your water to make sure that you're hydrating. You're getting a mineral replenishment as well. And then finally, I think the most important thing dealing with gall butter issues, and I know firsthand how overwhelming it can be, is seek support. Seek some support from some experts, especially if you go on this journey to save your gall butter. You most likely are going to have to incorporate some integrative medicine practices. So I set out a support team early on in my journey and it honestly was the best thing for me. I had a naturopath that supported me. I've had some other practitioners that have guided me through various issues as I've worked to save my gall butter. And it's been amazing and it's helped in more ways than one. One, they gave me the direction. Two, I felt more confident. So they helped me overcome gall butter attacks, learn how to overcome the fear of food, introduced a lot of healthy fats back in. how to support my body through pregnancy and postpartum to reduce gallbladder liver issues when they are higher risk. So a support team is vital, especially when you're dealing with gallbladder liver issues, we tend to be more sensitive. You know, the liver is a vital organ in many ways as well. And so learning how to optimize both these organs can be super helpful. If you do need help, the Gallbladder Diet Team assists fellow gallbladder warriors through either one-on-one care or my Gallbladder Saver Society membership. So the Gall Butter Saver Society membership is jam-packed with education, resources, recipes, tips to reduce down gall butter tax, pain, how to navigate gall butter diet, how to navigate gall butter issues if you're pregnant, postpartum, and so much more. I am biased because I poured my passion into creating this membership, so I do think it's the best resource out there if you are working to save your gall butter. And then certainly within the membership, you have support through myself. and through other guest experts as well and other gall butter liver experts to help guide you through your questions. So I am here as a fellow gall butter warrior and friend to help you find the cause of gall butter issues. And there's so many ways I can offer to support you through content on my Instagram at gallbutter.nutritionist or through one-on-one support or through my Gall Butter Saver Society membership. I highly recommend that if you just were diagnosed with gall butter issues, you're working to save your gall butter. Again, seek support, get a good game plan going, and you'll feel so much better. You'll feel confident, and you'll feel like you're moving in the right direction. So I hope this podcast episode was helpful for you. I hope you learned a little bit more about what the gall butter does in your body and why, if you're on a journey to save your gall butter, it may be important to you to work to save it. So thank you again for listening to this podcast. If you do find it helpful, just encourage you to please share it with a fellow gallbladder warrior. Let's help spread the gallbladder education so that way then they can feel confident on their gallbladder journey too. Thank you so much for listening.