Gallstone Risks

Are you at risk for gallstones? Having gallstones can be extremely painful. Surgery to remove gallstones or to perhaps even to have the gallbladder removed is not pleasant prospect. We will review here the causes of gallstones and what you can do to prevent them. We will help you evaluate your risk of getting gallstones, how to prevent them, and what kinds of gallstone treatments are available.

The gallbladder is a storage unit for bile. The liver produces bile and stores it in the gall bladder. Whenever you eat, the gallbladder contracts to push bile into your small intestine to help break down fats.

Bile contains cholesterol, water, bile salts and fats. Sometimes bad cholesterol can harden within the bile to form structures like stone, and then you have gallstones.

There are some specific risk factors leading to gallstones:

-Women have risks four times greater to develop gallstones than men, especially if they have had hormone replacement therapy, if they have high estrogen levels, as in pregnancy, or if they take birth control pills. These factors tend to increase cholesterol levels in the bile and often increase the risks of the cholesterol hardening and creating stones.

-There is a higher gallstones risk with diets with large amounts of animal products that contain high levels of cholesterol and fats, which contribute to the risks of creating gallstones.

-If your family has a history of being overweight, or if you keep trying to do rapid weight loss, you may have a genetic or stress factor on your organs that may contribute to the formation of gall stones.

Gallstones can form in two ways. First, one large gallstone can develop, which can be extremely painful and probably will require medical treatment, because it is too big to pass into the small intestine on its own.

Second, multiple small gallstones can develop; some can be as small as a grain of sand. Many small gallstones together can cause the same problem as a big one, but small ones might pass on their own out of the gall bladder into the small intestinge, then out of the body, sometimes without causing any problems at all,

Your doctor can test you and advise if you have any risk of gallstones, so he is your best place to start. Lecithin helps homogenize the cholesterol in the bile, to prevent gall stone formation, so it, along with vitamin E, and a diet with fewer animal products, like meat and milk, and more raw fruits, salads, and other vegetables can directly reduce the risks of bad cholesterol and gall stones. Exercise and sunlight can also help.

You may also like to read more about controlling cholesterol, which is part of the gall stone problem, at Cholesterol Healing .com.

This article was written by Jim Krage of Healing Energy News .com.