Gall Bladder

Report #6450

650,000 North Americans have gall bladder disease and suffer from belly pain or nausea, particularly after they eat fatty food.

Doctors are far less likely to remove your gall bladder now than they were 10 years ago. Removing the gall bladder may increase your chances of developing colon cancer. Your liver removes breakdown products of metabolism from your bloodstream and converts them to bile which is stored in your gall bladder. When food reaches your intestines, your gall bladder contracts and pumps bile into your intestines where it mixes with the food and helps to break it down so it can be absorbed into your bloodstream. However, after your gall bladder is removed, bile drips continuously from the liver into the intestines 24 hours a day. It is not diluted with food and remains in high concentrations in contact with your intestines continuously, which may lead to cancer.

If you have frequent gall bladder attacks, severe belly pain or an infection in your gall bladder that does not respond to simple treatment, you may have to have your gall bladder removed. With conventional open gall bladder surgery, it may take you more than six weeks to get back to your regular schedule. However, it will take only one or two days after you have it done laparoscopically through a small incision in which a tube is inserted into your abdomen. Research from Washington University in St. Louis shows that you are more likely to have complications from laparoscopic surgery if you have a history of gall bladder inflammation, ten or more gall bladder attacks or are over 65 years of age.

By Gabe Mirkin, M.D., for CBS Radio News Checked 2/8/09