This one might be more for Lapis but everyone else may know...

My daughter is suffering with gall stones, has had gall bladder removed...

Diet does affect her (as it does mum and sister) and eating fatty things (especially animal fats, pastry made with lard etc) gives them all bad indigestion. This I presume is because bile is used to help digest fats...

However I'm wondering if there is anything in their diet that is actually the catalyst for the stones growing ? What triggers them off ?

You can't do any sort of replacement/removal of single items from the diet because its not an instant thing for them to appear. Shes had hospital treatment about 4 times in just over a year.. massive amounts of pain (morphine on last visit) so I'm wondering if there is anything known to cause them that she should avoid.

I'm asking for dietry advice based on knowledge, not medical advice thanks (don't want to be giving out medical advice on a public forum etc)

thanks

Steve

sorry to hear of your problems, Steve.

AFAIK, gallstones are either cholesterol or 'pigments' containing bilirubin and the like. There is no suggestion that there is a link between diet and formation of the stones, but a healthier diet may help. I think this is like saying most of it is down to genetics, rather than diet.

Cutting down on cholesterol is probably not going to change anything, and it is a little known fact that the body makes its own cholesterol if it hasn't enough in the diet. About 3% of our brains are cholesterol, and cell walls would fall apart without it.

Bile helps emulsify the fats, so that enzymes (lipases) can break down the fats. Without it, most of the fat would be passed through the gut untreated.

thanks for that Lapis.. healthy diet (I'm hoping she will heed the warnings) it is then...

Steve

Sorry this is not food related but continuing with this thread.....

I have had kidney stones some time ago and one of it got lodged in the urinary tract, it was painful. In UK they won't prescribe anything but a doc in India advised me Ursocol SR450 (Ursodeoxycholic Acid - sustained release capsules).

stones could be due to cool aerated drinks like fanta limca cola

kidney stones are very different from gall stones, the former are usually calcium oxalate or phosphate, the latter cholesterol or heme porphyrins, such as bilirubin.

If you were given Ursodeoxycholic Acid, ('bear bile', ursa is latin for bear!)for kidney stones in India, then the person prescribing was a quack!!

I have never seen anyone smile as much as when a person has just passed a kidney stone. My sympathy.

And those capsules were expensive !!!! I wonder what they are used for ?(Ursocol)

If Ursocol from India is same as Urdox in UK, i.e., Orsodeoxycholic acid, it is listed in UK MIMS 2010 May edition, suitable for use in radiolucent cholesterol gallstones, but not radio-opaque ones.

Thanks for the information Dr. Mamta.