Bile salts and cholestrol stones

//www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=1456870


I think I've figured out one of the things I've been negligent about taking regularly..I have no gallbladder, and the ND told me that I needed to plan on taking bile salts for the rest of my life, to make up for what the gallbladder normally does.

Now it makes sense why I need the bile salts..I didn't understand exactly what the purpose for them was until I read this this week. I've started taking what I had left, and am ordering more to take faithfully now.

http://www.answers.com/topic/bile



>>>Bile salts pass down the entire length of the small intestine, but instead of their being degraded or excreted in faeces, a remarkable phenomenon occurs. The bile salts are absorbed as whole molecules at the far end of the small intestine (the terminal ileum) and pass up the portal vein to the liver, whence they are re-secreted into bile. This circuit, known as the entero-hepatic circulation, represents extraordinary parsimony, for at any one time only 3-5 g of bile acids are present in the body; this 3-5 g is known as the bile acid pool, and it circulates 6-10 times a day. About 0.5 g of bile acids is lost in the faeces per day, which means that an average bile acid molecule survives in the entero-hepatic circulation for about 3 days, making 18-30 cycles. During this time, it will escort many hydrophobic molecules (such as cholesterol) into the small intestine, and help with the emulsification and absorption of a significant quantity of fat. We have no idea why the body should indulge in this metabolic penny-pinching. If the terminal ileum is diseased, or has to be surgically removed, the bile acids pass into the colon, where they produce watery diarrhoea.


Cholesterol gallstones

The commonest disorder of bile formation is the presence of gallstones, and the commonest type of gallstone consists of cholesterol, which comes out of solution in the gall bladder. Gallstones cause symptoms by passing out of the gall bladder and obstructing the bile duct; the time-honoured treatment consists of surgically removing the gall bladder. More recently, stones have been treated medically, by increasing the bile acid/cholesterol ratio of bile. This is achieved simply by taking synthetic bile acids by mouth. Unfortunately it may take many months to dissolve existing gallstones, and even if it does have the desired effect, the patient will need to take bile acids indefinitely to prevent the recurrence of stones.>>>