moving to low carb/high fat if you have gall problems - any experiences?

[SCOTCHandWRY]

Ok, I'll keep this short as possible but want to avoid drip feeding.... about 7 years ago I switched to low carb/high fat& protein (after 15 years of low fat yo-yo dieting that left me fatter each time), lost 6.5 stones and kept it off (was still a bit heavy but also very fit). Then I got pregnant, managed fine while pregnant but after DS (now 20months) was born and lack of sleep hit, I went totally off the rails, gained 2 stones in a year in a massive carb binge and just didn't seem to be able to ditch the sugar -have lost 1.5stones on Low Fat diet (and high carb, struggling with comfort eating with lack of sleep still) and developed gall problems!

I had years of "minor" gall attacks/pain/symptoms before I went low carb/high fat 7 years ago - it all disappeared, and no problems until March this year (on low fat diet) when I had a much worse attack acute fro about 4 days and frequent minor niggles since then. I know all the theory about low fat/high carb actually causing gall stones, even if that goes against most current medical advice!

Has anyone any experience of going onto Low carb/high(er) fat while having quite active gall problems?

Did you gradually increase fat? How long did the attacks last after you changed diet?

Today I have ditched the "low fat", and have had medium fat breakfast and lunch - I have a few pains and I'm just waiting to see what happens....

are you certain the pain is due to your gallbladder or gallstones? I had mine whipped out a couple of years back but I still have the pain so they are looking into other causes now.

I was having numerous attacks and switched to SW i.e. Low-fat but high carb as soon as they said it was gallstones. If anything I ended up in more pain eating low fat!

all I can suggest is try gradually increasing your fat content and keep a food and symptom diary. Do have any acid or reflux?

Yes -and very typical gall signs/symptoms - would prefer to avoid op if at all possible for reasons you state - it doesn't solve all the problem for some people (gall bladder is removed but not other bits of the bile system which may also cause pain for some people).

It is fairly well recognised that going low fat/high carb (as people are advised to do), often makes things worse (and causes more stones)..... but the idea that MORE fat/less carbs may be a good thing goes against the "common sense" idea that gall problems are caused by fat (not much actual evidence of that). I thought this link was quite interesting-

www.dietdoctor.com/gallstones-and-low-carb

Anyway, nothing to lose as I'm heading for an op if I can't get it under control with Diet - and the recommended low fat/high carb is not working.

Am gradually going to cut the carbs and increase the fat and see what happens - had low carb, medium fat at dinner this evening, and a few twinges but nothing worse than I've been getting anyway....

OH, and no acid or reflux except when I have active gall pain (not between attacks).

I was just coming on here to give you the diet doctor link! I've never had gallstones but his logic makes perfect sense. I liked his point that you tell a person who has kidney stones to drink lots of water despite the fact that it will give them short term pain because it will flush out the stones and make them better. But when someone gets gallstones they're told to avoid the food that will flush out the gallstones which means that they just get worse and worse until the gallbladder needs removing. It makes no sense at all!

Good luck with your self experiment - I hope it turns out well for you and that you don't have to go through too much pain to get to the other side.

Thank you Stromba, twinges last night and felt quite sick but woke up this morning feeling not bloated (as I have most of the time recently!), had a few pains after my medium fat (low carb) lunch (not needed to take pain killers).
I think a few days (or weeks!) discomfort is to be expected if the gall bladder is clearing it's self out - obviously I'll keep a close eye on signs/symptoms. Only time will tell if it's working.
I will resist the urge to go higher fat at least for a couple of weeks, trying not to provoke a major attack.
DH is a Dr, is rolling his eyes somewhat but is watching with interest to see what happens. Interestingly, 7 years ago when I (and then he) both lost a lot of weight by changing to a low carb lifestyle, he was quite sceptical (this is not what they are taught at medical school, it's all "low fat/high carb"), but now routinely recommends low carbing to patients

That's the problem with doctors and nutritionists, they don't really get taught to question things. Certainly it would be impossible to get through medical school while questioning everything that you are being taught - at my university the medics don't start reading journal articles until the third year whereas the biologists are practically writing them at that stage.

Ask your husband why the advice given for kidney stones is the complete opposite to that given for gallstones. If he can't answer that then ask him to point you in the direction of a properly controlled intervention study published in a peer reviewed journal which shows that a low fat diet has a better clinical outcome in terms of retention of the gallbladder than a high fat diet or even just no intervention at all. That should shut him up for a while I'd imagine.

Indeed, I used the kidney stone example last night (and he agrees with the locic), and also showed him a fairly recent paper in GUT which showed (12 year study), that incidence of gall problems was correlated with carb intake.......

n=2, so hardly a big study, both his DM and myself had worsening symptoms of gall problems after going low fat/high carb!

It's not so much that he needs shut up (he's quite happy thinking we should all eat like cave people, but it's hard to unlearn all the "facts" about disease caused by fat) - I'd just like his raised eyebrow to lower a little!

*logic

Teehee. Tell him to go to pubmed and type in "low fat diet gallstones favourable outcome".

Lol, I just went on Pubmed.......0 results found.

I think his eyebrow is slowly lowering as my Gall bladder has not yet exploded after 3 days (twinging, but no worse than before, and I feel less ill/not quite right/sluggish), and he did rather enjoy last nights Paleo feast of oven baked fish and veg with herbs..... and I've dropped 4lb (glycogen stores obviously but still good to see).

An update for anyone who might have read this last week - After about 3 hours of Medium intensity pain and an uncomfortable night on Sunday - no more pain under ribs or through shoulder..... despite increasing fat content of diet a little more.

I realise it's early days still, but I am feeling great having ditched the refined carbs/grains (carbs from veggies and some fruit), and feeling like a mug for getting lured back in to low fat/high carb again when I know it makes me feel awful/ill.

The prescribed "you must eat very low fat(high carb)" to get the gall problems under control was certainly doing the opposite, with 5 months of eating less and less fat (and almost as a side effect, more and more refined carbs such as rice, bread, potato, after all you need to eat something and I was SO HUNGRY all the time!), I was getting pain and feeling awful all the time, I was becoming totally fat phobic!

So now - I'm not hungry, I don't feel ill, and I think my gall problems may be in the process of settling down.

If anyone else is considering giving this a try.... read the link in my PP, and please remember, it's the carbs, not the fats, that are the important thing to get right - you need to stop eating anything with sugar or flour or grains, anything high GI, otherwise you will certainly make things worse!