My Gallbladder Can Cause Bloating?

In Part 1 (read that here!) you may have been thinking SIBO is the cause of your bloating. It might be. 

But, it could be your gallbladder.

The liver, gallbladder, and bile duct work together to make, store, and secrete bile. Bile works like soap to break up the fat into smaller parts. These smaller fat particles can be digested and absorbed. 

If your gallbladder has been removed, likely it was because the bile had thickened into sludge and maybe even into stones. Or it may have been removed because it was inflamed or infected due to this process. Taking the gallbladder out doesn’t keep this from happening again.

 For those of you without a gallbladder, you may be interested to know that your bile duct simply pooches out and takes on the function of storing and releasing bile. Only problem is that it isn’t as good at it as the gallbladder was. For this reason you get a fairly constant dribble of bile rather than coordinated secretions. 

 So, whether you have a gallbladder or not, inflammation can thicken bile. This is problematic because thick bile doesn’t secrete. It needs to be thin in order to flow. Without bile, fats continue through the intestines without being broken down into useable bits.

When this happens you have bloating. AND you miss the benefit of the nutrition associated with those fats that didn’t get broken down. Remember, you need those fats to make hormones and digest and absorb fat soluble vitamins… A, D, E, and K.

 Further, that lack of bile in the intestine contributes to leaky gut and altered gut micro-biome according to recent research. 

 So, what’s a person to do? Is your bloating due to SIBO, or gallbladder?

To figure that out see Part 3!

Interested in More?

Check out these other two articles: