I had Cholecystectomy (removal of gall bladder) , do i have to alter my diet now?
Cholecystectomy is a surgical procedure in which the gall bladder is removed.
So did you have a cholecystectomy (removal of gall bladder)? and concerned if it is going to affect your diet or food digestion and how to alter your dietary habits? Well, in this topic, we will discuss over it and see if you really need to alter your diet to adjust to the new body without the gallbladder.
What does gallbladder do?
Gallbladder is a small sac shaped organ under the liver. The function of gallbladder is to store bile.
Bile is the fluid that’s secreted by liver through the biliary duct which connects the liver to the gallbladder.
Bile is stored in the liver until it’s required to be released in to the intestine, usually after the meal so that it can be digested properly.
I had Cholecystectomy, do i have to change my diet now?
First of all, lets clear it in one single line “most of the assumptions regarding cholecystectomy / removal of gall bladder are wrong“. And about diet, well, you don’t have to worry about it, and the patient can continue take the normal diet that he was used to take before the operation.
Mostly people question about fat metabolism, that isn’t it going to affect 
the fat metabolism? well to answer this question, we need to see how biliary system and fat metabolism occur.
There is continuous production of bile and its moved into the biliary channels, gets stored in the gall bladder and also gets released into the intestine.
When there is meal entrance into the small intestine (duodenum) , gall bladder releases the stored bile into the intestine.
Now why does it do that? Well, fat digestion and absorption involves a step called “Emulsification” and bile works as an emulsifying agent.
So what if gall bladder is removed, how is it going to affect the emulsification of the fat?
What happens after removal of gallbladder?
Well, lets see what happens if there is cholecystectomy?
There is no gall bladder, so no bile is being stored, which means that bile goes directly to the intestine, and is like continuous dripping off of the bile into the intestine. Well so? so !
- Duodenum is not a vertical pipe, so bile coming to it just dont get away from there once it reaches there, it gradually gets accumulated there.
- As food enters duodenum, it also don’t go away , it stays there for some time.
Which means, that the fats in the food still get enough bile to get emulsified!
There is one more point to note, for those who still consider that cholecystectomy patients (as a result of gall stones / cholelitiasis) should be advised to reduce the fat intake, well, the point to be noted here is, that gall bladder was already not functioning before removal via cholecystectomy, which means, if patient was fine before surgery, in digesting type of food that he used to take, he would be having similar experience after the surgery!
Does cholesterol raise after cholecystectomy?
Studies show that there is no difference in the blood cholesterol, VLDL and HDL after the removal of gall bladder.