Functional Medicine & Natural Healing Podcast
Dr. Houston Anderson, BS, BS, DC, MS, CNS is one of the last innovative functional medicine practitioners.
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Functional Medicine & Natural Healing Podcast
Gallbladder Problems - Sludge, Stones & IBS
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Understanding Gallbladder Problems
Speaker 1Welcome to the Functional Medicine and Natural Healing Podcast , where we share the secrets to upgrade your digestion , improve your hormones , restore your immune system and detoxify your body . I'm your host , Dr Houston Anderson . Now let's get started . The following discussion is for educational purposes only . It is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or disease process . Please discuss any medical treatments or medical interventions for your personal physician . Hey guys , welcome back to the podcast . I'm Dr Houston Anderson and I'm here with Dr Gabe today and we're going to talk about all things gallbladder . Gallbladder is one of my most I would say one of my most favorite things to talk about , because I think it's one of the most forgotten organs in the body . Is that what you see a lot of , Dr Gabe ? Do you see a lot of gallbladder problems in your office ?
Speaker 2Oh no , you definitely see quite a few gallbladder issues . I would definitely say that you can easily miss it if you're not paying attention or anything like that . You can easily miss it because sometimes in the functional medicine world we're more concerned about the gut , we're not really thinking liver gallbladder , or we dismiss it with just do a liver detox .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , for sure , I think . To start this one off , I think we'll go a little bit out of order . Normally we talk about management or treatment or different ways to go about it , but let's talk about signs and symptoms . What are some of the things that someone might have a gallbladder ? Let's start with the obvious ones . Then maybe let's bring out some of the ones where it's like people don't know they have a gallbladder problem , but for sure they have a gallbladder problem . Give me some of the obvious ones you got in your head .
Speaker 2Yeah , no that's a good question , obvious ones . You eat a fatty meal , you don't feel so good , whether it is immediately after eating , or 30 minutes after eating you start getting bloated . You might start just having some indigestion , gut pain , that sort of thing . Oftentimes you feel the pain around where the gallbladder is sitting right next to your liver , so that's kind of where you're going to feel the pain . Sometimes you'll mistake it for something else , but that's the obvious one for a gallbladder attack for a lot of people .
Speaker 1And the other place for gallbladder pain obviously is the right shoulder blade that talk about , but oftentimes it actually feels more like upper back pain . It doesn't have to feel like your right shoulder blade . I think everyone's like oh , my right shoulder blade feels okay , but it really can radiate throughout that whole upper mid-back area when you're having kind of like a gallbladder attack . Common one obviously is the belching after meals , so lots of burping , and it could be burping whether you're eating a fatty meal or you're not eating a fatty meal . It's just a discommunication between that stomach and the gallbladder that you're seeing there . So that'd be another sign or symptom that if you're that person , the easiest one is like fish oils that you keep burping up all day . That could be a gallbladder issue going on , because that's why everyone hates taking those fish oil pills right , Because they deal with it all day long .
Speaker 2What else ? They're just burping up gross taste and stuff all day . What else do you see ? So then we're starting to get into some of the more difficult to pinpoint types of things . So started off with still some more easy ones . You might see like floating stool or even you can have a little bit of diarrhea or constipation , so that's a fairly common thing . Change in stool that is maybe more directly tied to the gallbladder for a lot of people . But then you start getting into these weird ones where they have like bilateral knee pain . Both their knees are hurting and that's kind of a weird one . And like you mentioned , with the right shoulder , that one is definitely a strange one . That people are just like oh man , I just got stress in my upper back or I pulled something in my right shoulder . But then you can also get like some jaundice if it's really really bad . You can also get nausea , vomiting that sort of thing if it's really bad , but nausea is actually a fairly common one .
Speaker 2I actually forgot about that one earlier . So nausea is pretty common for a lot of people with gallbladder issues and so you know , after they're eating a meal or even just later on , they might be nauseous and they're just like what's going on ? I don't understand what's going on . And the last one that I totally forgot your stool may change color . It may become kind of gray . It may not actually be your typical color and that can be alarming for some people . Like what's going on there ?
Speaker 1Yeah , so they often call it like clay colored stool in the medical textbooks , right . But it can range anywhere from like a white to a gray to almost like a yellow , a little bit different . If that gallbladder is having an issue there , that can be confused oftentimes with like a pancreas titus , so like if you're in a weird spot or you need like if your digestion is getting pretty severe . You probably need to go get that figured out whether it's a severe pancreas issue or whether you're just having a mild gallbladder issue or whether that gallbladder issue is coming up on you . So I think those are pretty important . I'm trying to think of other ones . A simple test , right . So I love throwing out like these things that people can do at home . If you take like two tablespoons of coconut oil and you eat that and you get like hot flashes or you get sweats or you feel uncomfortable , that's a sign that your gallbladder can't tolerate that much fat . So that's two tablespoons worth of fat you can start with . And there's a caveat , because you're all are going to get sick off of that because everyone's got a bad gallbladder these days . But let's go back and say try a half a tablespoon of coconut oil , see if you can tolerate that , then try a tablespoon , then try a tablespoon and a half and keep working your way up . But that's a big one that I see .
Speaker 1In fact I had a lady just the other day , a 77 year old lady . She comes in , she's like oh , I'm suffering from hot flashes , just can't get my hormones balanced . And guess what she does ? Every morning , a tablespoon of coconut oil . Well , she cuts out the coconut oil All of a sudden she doesn't have hot flashes . But it was just the timing of the hot flashes were weird , right . So it's like every morning I have hot flashes . I was like , well , what about at night ? Like , oh , no , no , no hot flashes at night . I was like , well , this doesn't really make sense for a typical female hot flash . Plus , she's plenty of years past or into menopause . Why should she be experiencing hot flashes all of a sudden ? So she had kind of changed up her diet and ate a bunch of fats , and then she was pretty much vegetarian , so doing a lot of insulin at the same time . So that's kind of where we see these happen .
Speaker 1So let's say , someone comes in your office . Honestly , most people don't know they have a gallbladder problem . But that's that I , after like reviewing this stuff , I'm like obsessed . So I really want to go and I'm going to make a whole PowerPoint on this because I think that it's the most undereducated organ in the body . Everyone talks about detoxes and liver detoxes and gut health and brain health and all that , but no one ever talks about the gallbladder , which , arguably , in my opinion , is probably you can't say anything's most important . But I would just say like it is the missing link in so many cases that I see that will kind of go in and , like I said , I'm kind of obsessive about the gallbladder . But , dr Gabe , my question for you is what is the traditional medical system going to do for this ? You go to the doctor usually it's after you have a gallbladder attack , right ? Or maybe if you have some weird gut issues , what's your presentation ? What do they do for you ?
Speaker 2So whether or not the severity of the attack . So sometimes they go to the ER , sometimes they go to urgent care or they just go to their PCP and they're talking about these things . Now to what degree that they're going to do various tests kind of depends on the severity of the attack
Gallbladder Function and Treatment
Speaker 2. So whether they're going to do like an ultrasound or something like that , to kind of do some sort of imaging on the gallbladder , they're mainly looking for gallstones or they're looking for essentially how well it's functioning and , if it's able to function correctly , how much bile is getting out or how is it stuck , that sort of thing . And generally speaking , it's going to be dependent on the severity . So if it's mild , they're going to be like watch your fads , probably even more low-fat diet .
Speaker 2If it's very severe , they're going to go to one thing , and one thing mainly , and that's let's cut that thing out , and that's going to be one of the main ones . Especially if there's gallstones present , they're going to cut it out , and that of course comes with its own risks and you're going to have an increased risk of cancer and other things for the rest of your life because you removed that thing . But many , many people still have gallbladder issues Afterwards . Yes , you're missing the gallbladder , but now your bile production is still impaired or not functioning correctly , and I think maybe the next important thing to cover is what's the point of the gallbladder ? Dr Houston , what do we use the gallbladder for ? What's ?
Speaker 2the physiology there .
Speaker 1Well , I think the basic thing that everyone talks about and this is why I think he gets forgotten is simply because they talk about the bile is responsible for helping to metabolize fats . Right , that's all they talk about . It's like , oh , you need it so you can get your vitamins A , d , e and K , those kind of fat soluble vitamins . You need to metabolize the fats that you eat in your diet , your olive oils , your animal fats , your butter , things like that . But I think what people forget is that the bile's primary responsibility other than that so that's the first one , but in my opinion , the primary responsibility is that it actually lubricates the intestines . So there's a whole endocrine system that , once again , this is like something that people don't talk about . This right , the bile is actually a steroid . That steroid goes and calms down the inflammation of the intestine . That's called the bile steroid system . Not many people talk about that axis , and that axis specifically literally goes and takes your IBS and your inflamed stomach and your irritation that's going on in the duodenum , that upper GI , and it calms it down . If we don't have enough bile , we can't do that .
Speaker 1So I would say that that's probably one of the most important reasons and we'll talk about essentially like that . That goes wrong when your bile gets too thick or you start forming stones or you don't make enough , all of those things . The second thing that I would say is it's the way that you eliminate toxins , so your liver is going to go and bind all of those right . Your liver binds all those toxins , but then it goes into this bile acid and the bile acid is responsible for essentially like , holding it and protecting it . And while it holds and protects that , then it throws it into the digestive tract , and that's why you want to see your stool to be that nice brown color , because if it's that clay color or that yellow color , it means that you're not eliminating toxins adequately . So that's kind of how I think of it , but I don't know if there's something you were going at specifically . But those are two of the ones I wanted to mention because I think that no one talks about .
Speaker 2No , those two are great . The other one , of course , we already kind of like sort of alluded to , which is just the emulsification of fats so that you can digest them properly . Otherwise , the other important thing in my mind is understanding what your bile is made of , what is in it , and that's going to be your bile salts , your lecithin and your cholesterol . And that's actually another big point that medical doctors are going to actually go after is they're going to link your gallstones with too much cholesterol . Therefore , you're going to be put on a statin , and the statins are definitely problematic .
Speaker 1Yes , you'll often find that people will have high cholesterol while they have a gall bladder issue . So even if you look at it and say like , hey , someone comes in the office has high cholesterol , that can simply be the fact that your gall bladder is inflamed and your body is trying to decrease that . I did want to cover one more thing on that diagnosis and kind of like , when you have your gall bladder removed when you shouldn't . There's an important thing that I want to talk about . So sometimes they'll measure with that ultrasound the ejection fraction ratio . When you measure your ejection fraction ratio , it's a really weird number and they don't tell you this . So they're going to tell you that your EGFR and it's not EGFR , I can't think of it in an acronym right now they're going to tell you that your ejection ratio is very low . So they're going to say , hey , it's only at 13% . Well , that's kind of tricky because an optimal ejection fraction ratio isn't much higher than like 25% . So they're telling you it works at 10% , but you're only supposed to work at 25% , so you're still working pretty well .
Speaker 1The other thing that I'll say is I've seen many , many cases of ejection fraction ratios that are at 2% , 3% , that never have to have their gall bladder removed . So they can completely fix their gall bladder without actually having to worry about that number . But as soon as that ratio goes down or they say you're not excreting enough bile , all of a sudden they want to remove it because they think that's the problem . So that's another important one . There Stones can become dangerous . Usually , you know , if they're big enough and you may have to have your gall bladder removed . If it goes into the common ducts , that essentially can jam up that pancreas and stop all digestion altogether .
Speaker 2And that's when it can become an emergency . For sure , One of the things that in the past that even our mentor , Dr Erigan Jimmy , he's talked about if you have somebody who has extreme right shoulder pain and then it instantly goes away , that's an emergency situation . Go get it checked out , because I could have been . Their gall bladder got ruptured .
Speaker 1Yeah , and what I always tell people is like everyone says , what if I'm having a gall bladder attack ? What should I do ? There's a lot of things to do , but from the medical perspective , here's what I would say . One I would go to the ER . I would go and take whatever pain medication they want to give me right , not natural but I would take the pain medication and then I would still leave and try and save my gall bladder . That's what I would do , because as soon as you get there , what you run into is you have a gall bladder attack .
Speaker 1Everyone knows you have a gall bladder attack . When you get to the hospital , and who do you meet with ? Well , you meet with someone called the general surgeon , right ? The general surgeon does one thing he cuts things out . That's his specialty . He ties things up , he connects things , he removes organs . He does surgery on pretty much every internal organ in the thoracic cavity , and so if you're going to meet with him and he doesn't want to waste his time , he's going to say , hey , let's get this out , because you're going to be back in a week and I'm going to have to remove it in a week . So you do run into this problem as soon as you have a gall bladder attack , you're prone to having more , so you have to start to do something pretty aggressively at that time . So let's jump from the medical world , because neither of us are medical doctors , but that's kind of how we see it approached . I'll just leave it at that and let's jump to what kind of thought process is in a natural practice of the gars . What do you ?
Speaker 2think , yeah , somebody's coming in , we know it's a gallbladder or we assume it's gonna be a gallbladder . I had a patient yesterday Everything was kind of lining up to it . They were dealing with like a hiatal hernia issue . They ended up actually getting the surgery for the hiatal hernia and guess what ? They're belching , they're bloating , didn't go away . And so I was like , yeah , we've already cleaned up the gut , things are looking pretty good . I bet it's gallbladder is what's left
Insulin and Artichoke in Gallbladder Health
Speaker 2.
Speaker 2And so looking into that , that was kind of my important thing I wanted to get at . I was like , okay , what's causing this gallbladder issue ? And that's gonna be more along our lines is we're gonna be looking okay , what's the natural physiology , what's actually going on in the body ? And then what affects the gallbladder directly ? And there are many different things that affect it . And so I'm gonna be trying to figure out like what are the most common is insulin .
Speaker 2If you've got blood sugar issues , your gallbladder is not gonna be in a happy state , so you could have constipation , you could have all the symptoms that we've talked about . But we gotta address insulin Now . Insulin is gonna be high , for mainly because we're eating a lot of carbohydrates . We're not really eating enough protein , that sort of thing , things that we've talked about in the past , but we need to address that directly too . So what can we help the insulin ? Lower the insulin or at least help your body process things correctly ? So sometimes it could be things like zinc , it could be things simple , things like chromium , which a lot of people know about chromium I mean , there's a famous drink that's out there that has chromium in it that a lot of people use and it's probably helping with insulin issues , which has been , in turn , helping with gallbladder problems .
Speaker 1I don't know that drink but I'm not gonna ask you to drop names , but I can't think of a drink . Yeah .
Speaker 2Yeah , otherwise there's several other things that are gonna be doing other than diet . So one of the other things that I see commonly that actually help with insulin is sesame seed oil Unrefined , unroasted , like none of that like toasted stuff that you're getting in the store . It's unrefined sesame seed oil . When you do a high dose for a short period of time and that helps you get over the curve as you're trying to fix your diet . But insulin is by far not the only thing that affects it . Estrogen also affects it and I'll throw that back at you because I know that's a huge thing you love because of artichoke .
Speaker 1Yeah , so let me connect those two things we just talked about , because how I address this when I was looking at just your show notes versus my show notes , I address it slightly differently . But there's a reason why and once again , that's what I love about this and that's why I was actually excited that we didn't like share notes about this one before we talked is because I like people to know like there's one , more than one way to treat something . What makes a doctor or a holistic practitioner powerful is that you tried something at home and this is every patient that walks into our office . They tried seven different things that they found online from famous Instagram , dr Anderson or anyone and it's like , all of a sudden then it didn't work , and so our job as practitioners is like to have more tools up our sleeve rather than hey , well , I already tried a gallbladder flush , it didn't work . So let's connect those two things . So the reason why I love artichoke so much for the gallbladder and you're gonna see that I use it ridiculously almost all the time If you have a gallbladder or liver issue , I do believe you need to take artichoke .
Speaker 1And why is that ? Well , not because I make it and make money off of it . But because in order to balance , in order to create bile , you need something called glucuronic acid . It's a big word , but glucuronic acid , the base word is glucose . It comes from that insulin problem , right ? So if your insulin's not balanced , if your blood sugar's not balanced , you can't make enough glucuronic acid . So what happens is everyone comes in with bad blood sugar and now they wanna have perfect hormones and a great gallbladder and just getting there like to perfect blood sugar could take you , you know , three months to get there before you even see a home run in your total physiology . I mean , you have to start rebalancing every system . You have to balance your hormones , things like that . So what we use artichoke for is it has that glucuronic acid in it and so it kinda I call it like the second liver . But the reason why I call it the second liver is cause it takes care of two things . If you come in with bad insulin , I can still start to get that estrogen under control .
Speaker 1Now let's talk about the estrogen in the gallbladder , because that's what the podcast's about . Estrogen makes your gallbladder bile thicker . So , like I said , all these toxins go into the liver . The liver conjugates them , throws them into that bile and the more toxins you have , the more estrogen and we'll get to more toxins . But really , the more toxins you have in your environment , most of them being estrogenic , everything from tap water to birth control to pesticide to your weed killers , outside everything that you have , everything we come into contact to , even tap water right , they find estrogen in tap water all the time . All of these things kinda thicken that bile and the way I like to think of it is your bile is 95% water . Actually , it should flow through just like water , because it should be really thin . But what happens is that with all of these toxins it actually gets pretty thick . And when it gets pretty thick , then it , I would say , like rolls down a hill , like you imagine , like Jello rolling down a hill , kind of blobby , just not the same as water would run down a hill . So that's what I would say . Estrogen makes that bile thick . When it's thick it doesn't have as many like receptor sites to interact with your gut . Now , all of a sudden , it no longer calms down your gut inflammation and it doesn't detox as well because it's fully loaded with toxins . So the bile can only hold so many toxins . So it's full of estrogen .
Speaker 1As the first one , I did mention birth control . So birth control will go in and cause that there's lots of different forms of birth control . We'll throw out that none of them are great . I will throw out on the podcast , just because I've been getting patients with it recently , that IUDs are some of the worst , not because in my opinion that they didn't . Yeah , they don't damage the gallbladder in my opinion , based upon my clinical observations , in my practice at least but they do slow down transit time so you get constipated and your gallbladder doesn't contract as much as it used to .
Speaker 1So just balancing those hormones out , whether it's artichoke or really even before artichoke , would be the insulin that you talked about balancing the diet , getting that blood sugar . But the reason why I always say artichoke's so critical is because the odds of someone getting in a non-estrogenic environment , avoiding all estrogens in their food , all estrogen . So any unprocessed meat , any not grass fed meat , is all gonna be estrogenic , have added hormones . The odds of that happening are just so low that it's like we're gonna need support at this point in time . So that's where I'd go estrogen Other than insulin , I can interject you .
Speaker 2So 100% of the artichoke , like I use it all the time . In fact , that patient yesterday I mentioned with the gallbladder , that's exactly what I gave them . But yeah , I mean , you see that direct link with blood sugar issues or dysplasemia and a lot of these people , because of that glucuronic acid issue , if they're gonna run into joint issues , they're gonna run into formulation of like polygen , all these little things , and that is an important blood sugar dysregulation that is directly linked to this issue with estrogen and glucuronic acid . And so having artichoke is super helpful . Yeah , you might use chromium , you might use zinc , you might use a lot of these things , but yeah , no , artichoke 100% is really really helpful for a lot of patients and , like you said , it's pretty common to send a patient out the door with that stuff .
Uncovering Gallbladder Toxins and Pathways
Speaker 1The last thing I'll say is like for those listening to the podcast that made it this far there's not many doctors that understand these chemical pathways and that's where , like , it gets kind of weird .
Speaker 1I listened to like 15 different podcasts before I hopped on here today . I was like they're they don't really understand . They're like , well , the research says , take this and it helps your gallbladder , but like they don't really know why it's happening and so it's important to like try your best to find a doctor that has a good grasp of it , not just like , oh , here's our gallbladder flush we use for everyone and it works for everything . There's , there's mechanisms , there's stories that bid big word glucuronic or glucuronidation . Those are actually Understandable things that I was telling a patient yesterday .
Speaker 1There's only two people in the world that I've ever known that actually taught all of those pathways , and they're both within that the applied kinesiology , applied kinesiology profession , right . So the muscle testing world , which is Chris Day sales Smith . He teaches a lot of it , and then you had Wally Schmidt , who taught it to everyone , and those two were like the original ones that were doing like the nutritional chemistry that no one else had put together or talked about . So still to this day , in fact , we've kind of lost the people that teach those . So we're kind of we're in a weird world right now .
Speaker 1So I think that's one of my goals of like the podcast and being online is simply that I'm trying to share some of the things that that they're really not able to be found out there . But that's just kind of a rant right there and just like there are better , more knowledgeable people there can be great doctors that don't know this stuff too , but I think that you should just always like try and find someone that really knows your stuff . So what's next , doc ? What are we covering next ? Other things that irritate the gallbladder . Set them off .
Speaker 2So the other things are two other common toxins that I quite frequently see , so ammonia and aldehyde toxicity . So that's for me . So ammonia . Of course , when you're thinking ammonia , a lot of people might think you , I do . You know the chemical that you're cleaning or use as a cleaner at home . Of course I kind of live in the meth capital of Missouri at least , and so a lot of things that smell like ammonia , depending on what part of town you're in .
Speaker 2But ammonia itself comes from the breakdown of protein . But it also can come from different infections , and that is probably a really common thing . So ammonia toxicity , like you were saying earlier , any sort of toxins is going to sludge up the , the bile , it's going to make a thing not move correctly , and so ammonia toxicity has a lot of different symptoms too . So you're going to run into brain fog , you're going to run into a lot of neurologic things , you're going to run into various symptoms with ammonia toxicity . But as soon as I see it and I look for the things that fix it .
Speaker 2So generally ammonia toxicity , you're going to look the area pathway , because that's where our urine comes from . So you're going to look at that pathway . There's a few others , like uric acid or creatine , that you want to look at , because your body removes ammonia in a few different ways . But you want to figure out Is this coming from a bacteria , fungus or something like that , and where is that located after ? You find that because as soon as you know there's an ammonia issue , you better probably be looking to rule out some sort of infection that is going unnoticed somewhere Usually the gut . Probably the gut is the most common , but nevertheless you better be finding that because as much as you can you know , throw Whatever it is phosphorus or something like that to help remove ammonia . You better be getting rid of the bacteria or whatever is causing it to begin with , or else you're throwing water into a leaky barrel .
Speaker 1Love it , Love it . Um aldehyde toxicity . You want to talk about that real quick .
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah , no , that one's a . I like aldehyde toxicity . I find that one's quite often . You know it's pretty much fungus , almost always whenever aldehyde toxicity is showing up . And if Somebody is saying you know they got chronic sinus infections , they got a lot of these little check marks , frequent yeast infections , maybe even like toe fungus .
Speaker 2I'm going to be looking for different things , but when aldehyde show up , I almost always will ask how do you feel when you go by Bath and Body Works or the perfume aisle at Walmart or wherever ? And a lot of times they're like yeah , I don't like being around strong smells , it makes me sick to my stomach or it gives me a headache if I'm there for too long . And then I'm like yeah , you got an aldehyde problem and I go searching on that pathway the most common thing for aldehydes and my office is Malibu to help remove it . So it's the same pathway that you detox alcohol from . So if you're drinking a lot , a lot of people have harsh hangovers because of aldehyde toxicity . And so there's other things irons involved , b3 is involved . There's definitely things involved there . But again , you're going to go looking for a fungus or something that's causing this Issue in the first place and most common for sure , is fun going sections .
Speaker 1Yep , I love that . Yeah , so I'll . The high toxicity I have an article on my website on aldehyde toxicity , because a lot of people talk about how sensitive they are to chemicals and spells and then they like , oh , I'm sensitive , the entire environment , you know , it's like I can't go outside and breathe air . It's like , well , yes , obviously a lotion shop is gonna be much more extreme than anywhere else , but yeah , then we explain how that fungus and that alcohol , as you mentioned come from the essentially , are detoxified through the same pathway and that over burdens that , and so we're kind of on those , you have the aldehyde and the ammonia toxicity , but I would say , if we go back to that gallbladder and Toxins , that kind of overburden it . One of the biggest things that I like to talk about is simply that most of our toxins are made inside our body , and that's where a lot of people are like , oh well , you know , I got to make sure that my cleaning chemicals are perfect , I got to make sure my makeup is perfect , I got to make sure everything else is perfect , and I totally agree that those things should be cleaner , but 90% of the toxins that your body has to detox is made inside your gut or another organ . So those are just like I always say , like you want to , like you said you want to go after that fungus first , kill that fungus , see if you still react to your environment . If you still react in your environment , then you usually clean up the environment . But as a doc I don't have time to babysit everyone's chemicals in their house . I can't go and like , walk through everyone's house and check . You know everything they did and even some of my cleanest patients have perfect , flawless chemicals . Essentially you would say you know , and once again we try to have clean chemicals , but say you do that , but they still spray for bugs , right , that'll burn the gallbladder or and inside their house and maybe they come once a month or once every other month because they really hate . You know , whatever bug it is , that's okay . Or you know , had patients recently move into like a new home , right , so now they got brand new couches , brand new walls , they're all off-gassing , all kinds of aldehydes and they don't feel well and it's just like that's . You know , there's no perfect way to avoid your environment . So I say , take care of your internal environment . First . We mentioned alcohol . Alcohol that pathway , same thing with aldehyde , is gonna go through there .
Speaker 1Low stomach acid We'll just mention . I'm not crazy on low stomach acid . We'll get into those some supplements a lot . I'd prefer to not add stomach acid to people , but the stomach acid does stimulate kind of that , that process where it's gonna make that gallbladder Actually contract and release the bile so you can cleanse out and have that bowel movement . So they're into intimately connected . One other one I did want to mention that we haven't talked about yet is caffeine . So what's your stance on caffeine in the gallbladder ?
Speaker 2so Caffeine's an interesting one . I think it's maligned Sometimes for no real reason . I mean that everyone does the tax caffeine . Yeah , it is a stressor to your adrenal glands , it's a stressor to your brain , especially your HIPAA campus , of course , is the stressor , but at the same time is it the big hitter . I don't really agree with that . It can definitely be an issue for a lot of people , especially if you're addicted to it , especially if your adrenals are taxed , especially if your liver is taxed because your liver is gonna your phase one of liver detoxification get rid of caffeine .
Speaker 2Yeah , but at the same time , if you're using caffeine from a good , clean , organic product and you're feeling overall okay , it's gonna come with a natural detoxification agent , so like B3 and others , and so I'm not that big on removing it as long as you're not going nuts at it and you're taking like three cups of coffee or something like that per day . Now it can definitely affect things , and so if it's affecting your liver detoxification , then that's going to affect your bile production , directly or indirectly , I'd say . And so , yeah , it can be an issue , but it is not my and it's probably not even my top 10 that I'm looking at when it comes to gallbladder . And one last thing before we move on , I forget , so we do practice a little bit different when it comes to the stomach acid . Like I do see it , zinc can actually help with the low stomach acid and so that's kind of a big one that I might see with gallbladder . And yeah , you're right , it primes the pump for the gallbladder , it helps it .
Speaker 2You get ready whenever If you have enough stomach acid . You know foods coming in , that sort of thing . I don't think I give it out a tongue , but Definitely for those patients who are struggling with Low stomach acid . They're not , you know , breaking down meat and that sort of thing . I will give it to them for four period of time and then we pull off of it and their stomach will take over the course . So that might be a little bit of a difference , but Otherwise , is it the big number one ? No , it's a supportive agent .
Speaker 1Yeah , no . So what's getting ? I used like a zypan or a BTNHL every once a while . But just to just to cover kind of my interesting thing , Once again I looking for gallbladder , like how does caffeine affect that ? I don't have any problem with , just like you . I mean , I think your stance on caffeine and liver detoxification and phase one diagnosis and all that is all perfect , Like that's exactly what I say to patients . But I would say there's a lot of patients that I get with gallbladder that say if I don't drink a cup of coffee , I don't have a bowel movement .
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah , yeah , I was always going to go there .
Speaker 1Yeah , and so that just that's one of those like oh , you have a gallbladder problem and so oftentimes you know , I don't take people off caffeine completely either , but it's a matter of like . It's like okay , but we need to use that as a sign that our gallbladder is not perfect , because as soon as you drink caffeine , your liver freaks out and then it causes this reaction in the gallbladder . You have an over contraction and then sometimes you have like loose stools in the morning for your first bowel movement . Then they solid back up , but like those are another sign of that gallbladder Just trying to give people more of those like little things where you know you can diagnose your gallbladder without having to have a gallbladder attack .
Exploring Gallbladder Issues and Copper Toxicity
Speaker 1Because the stones that people run into , the stones that you run into when you have a gallbladder problem , were not there yesterday necessarily . They didn't come two days ago . They came like six months ago . They started forming slowly but surely . It's not like you woke up one day and had stones . It's these little symptoms that people are missing and then they're like I don't know where my gallstones came from . It's like they came from your poor habits or your poor health , and once again , it doesn't have to be that poor . You could be almost perfectly healthy and still form gallstones because you're missing one piece .
Speaker 1And so , anyway , that's . I use that as an indicator , you know , as people are like well , how do I have bowel movements ? Well , if I don't drink my coffee , there's no way I'm going poop today , right ?
Speaker 2So I see that a lot .
Speaker 1Um , yeah , and I don't want to think of any other things copper toxicity , I'll mention that really quick . Um , but the reason your bile is green is because of copper . Essentially that's oxidized copper that you see in there . Um , so your bile should be green , um , but you can get too much copper inside that gallbladder and if we're not monitoring him every once in a while , I'll get someone where I give them artichoke and then they'll have a poor reaction and they just feel horrible or more anxiety or heart palpitations or something like that . And I want to say this is like one out of 4,000 , because I hear it about once a month and we , you know , we sell about 5,000 bottles a month artichoke , so a lot of artichoke , right ? Um , but of that story you know , one of those people is going to react with something , either mental or physical .
Speaker 1That's not so good and usually that's because the copper is high in that gallbladder . So you have too much copper from either pipes or just exposure or just build up over time and you have an adequately detox . Then we go and push it all out into the intestines and the body doesn't like that too much when it has high copper circulating throughout some intestines and throughout the bloodstream . So that's just another one there where you'll see a lot of copper toxicity issues Really not as common as I think some people say . It's pretty common depending on your location . So how older the homes , yeah , how much coppers in your pipes , right ? So if I get , if I get someone that's home was built before , like 1950 , I'm checking copper toxicity for sure . Um , you know someone's home built in 2000, . There's probably not that much copper in their pipes .
Speaker 2So no , it is an interesting one because I just had , uh I just got worked on just a little bit ago by Dr Gange and one of the things that he found was insulin , which is way common to cause gallbladder issues . But the thing to actually help insulin was zinc and the zinc there was a direct correlation . Like I don't I'm not copper toxic , but because I am zinc deficient it was kind of showing as causing some certain musculoskeletal issues leading to headaches , and it was just a fascinating thing . So yeah , again , copper is not , like you know , number one . You should check it , especially if you know the house before , like 1950s or whatever , or history of a copper IUD , something like that . Otherwise , yeah , I know it's kind of an interesting thing with , like , zinc deficiency related to insulin , one of the more common ones , but you can see an effect with copper , having too much copper , even though it's still within normal ranges .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , I probably don't give as much zinc as I should , but I uh . What brand do you use for zinc Cause I don't think that's on our supplement list .
Speaker 2Uh , so two different brands most common . One zinc chelate from standard process , the other one is zinc xyme from biotics .
Speaker 1Yeah , I use a lot of xyme from biotics . Yeah , that's what I do . So let's go to that . Let's go over some supplements now . Um , I think we've covered a lot of some of the gallbladder issues , uh , and we'll go through some questions in the next Q and a podcast , but let's start talking about some of those . So , um , can you differentiate between betaine and betaine HCL for me and kind of say like , what are they ? And let's cover both of those in one shot ?
Speaker 2So betaine , um , you might see it in a kind of a more chemical form like TMG , um , but mostly we're going to find that , like the supplement I use is made from beats , so it's high in beats and that sort of thing . It helps thin the bile , it helps it move . So the difference between betaine or betaine however you want to pronounce it in in betaine HCL is one's hydrochloric acid and the other one is not . So HCL is hydrochloric acid . That's one that is . You know , if you take that stuff you don't chew it .
Speaker 2Yeah , like you swallow that one directly , whereas like betaine , I mean it's mainly from beats , or at least the supplement that I'm using is mainly from beats . You can get one from a biotics . I can't remember where they're getting it from . It could still be from beats as well , Um , but that's mainly going to help the bile move . I use , uh , either one . I might use biotics . I might use standard process . I use quite a bit of standard process for like , like beta food which is going to have betaine in it .
Speaker 2So that's kind of the difference there . Betaine HCL definitely will help with the stomach acid and sometimes I see the need of both betaine or like beta food and betaine HCL . So you kind of need both of them to kind of help things move along yeah .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 1So I think one of the things that people listening should know is , like our practices end up being different based on how we acquire patients right .
Speaker 1So at this point in time , I just opened up to new patients for like a week a couple weeks ago and I just got like all these new patients that are just very different from what I'm used to . I'm like where do these people come from ? Like , because my patient base is pretty uniform , I've kind of dialed it in from the last X amount of years of practicing to where , like , people already know what they should be eating . They've already listened to a couple podcasts , they've already tried to start eating healthy , those kind of things . So now when you get like brand new patients , I'm like , oh wait , we don't know what gluten is yet , we don't know what stomach acid is yet . It's just kind of it's both fun and very different than what I'm
Supplements and Tips for Gallbladder Health
Speaker 1used to . So you may run into a lot of B-Tain , HCL if you've never seen someone before , if they haven't started eating healthy , if they are not on the same point and so I see that a lot .
Speaker 1I remember with the other Dr Anderson we had a conversation and he's like I use fish oil on every patient all the time and I'm like man , I just can't get fish oil to test for many people like they don't need it .
Speaker 1But the difference was he was treating a population at that time that was using health insurance , so his practice was covered by health insurance . They were coming in eating a standard American diet and they were just eating junk food at McDonald's all day long , right , and my patient base had been eating paleo on average for two years , you know , and they had already balanced a lot of their omegas . It's not that I didn't find it all ever , it's just that he was like I'm using it on every patient every day and it just didn't make sense to me . But the patient bases are different , so we do see different , different patterns there . Probably one of the most underestimated supplements that I use and I actually think a lot of doctors I know would do well if they added it more is the body guard or the chonka piedra , so body guard is a pre nutrition .
Speaker 1That's one of my favorites by far for almost any digestive issue . I think a lot of people I'll use that for kidneys or for gallbladder , either one that stones . So chonka piedra , spanish name , stone breaker . Right , we're going to use that to break up those stones and I think that it works pretty well . I don't . I , in fact , like I've had people , you know , for kidney stones that were passing over 60 kidney stones a month that chonka piedra does miracles . That's a lot right .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1But that that patient , for example , actually had so much scar tissue that he couldn't feel him anymore . So he was good to go , just like no pain at all . He was just peeing stones every day . Right , so fun .
Speaker 1But and then also on that vitamin A , thinning the bile , you'll find that all the supplements we talk about essentially thin the bile . There's there's another way to go about it . So you can thin bile with a lot of things we use which are often beet based , or I don't even know If we have mentioned things like to ring or Colleen that help to thin the bile . But then you have the herbal way and the herbal way is more like it stimulates more bile production . So there's two different ways to go about it . So if I look at like beta food , beta call , coli call , I feel like all of those thin the bile of what you already have , but do or add bile salts . And then the herbal way stimulates the liver to make more bile , which then in turn thins it out . So that's like the artichoke or the dandelion approach or even the milk . This will approach any of the bitters right that you're going to use in herbal medicine are the ones that kind of like promote up regulation . A lot of them like up regulate by our production . We have to like 60 , 70 percent , so it's crazy . And that's at 500 milligrams a day for most of them . So if you like triple that , you're honestly like creating almost twice as much bile . Now people are like , oh , twice as much bile , could that be bad ? No , because twice as much bile gives you twice as much detoxification . So I quick pet peeve really quick . I'm probably one of the only doctors in the world that has a course on bile acid malabsorption . I don't care about selling that course , but I'll just tell you that bile is never bad . In that , in that condition where you have like green stools or loose stools or gallbladder issues they talk about , you're making too much bile . It's exactly the opposite , because what I've done to treat all those people is up regulate their bile production and everything gets better . So it's .
Speaker 1I have an article , like I said on it , like biolacid malabsorption or biolacid diarrhea . That is a gallbladder issue and it is because of low bile acids , not because of high bile acids , and I'd go to go at bat for that for a lot of people . But understand that medicine is completely opposite on that one . So that's a whole nother article you can read on my website just to understand a little bit more about the gallbladder . If you're having those kind of issues which we didn't cover a ton of loose stools Gallbladder presentation is usually the female . She's 40 , she's still fertile . Sometimes she's overweight with that insulin issue and she has constipation . That's her typical gallbladder presentation . But there's a subset it's about 3% of the population with gallbladder issues right now that have this chronic diarrhea coming from the gallbladder . So that's another one there . What other supplements ?
Speaker 2you got , doc . I like all that because it kind of depends on the patient . Do you need the herbal protocol ? Do you need the vitamin , the mineral , the thing that's missing , or do you need both ? A lot of times it's both , and so one of the big ones choline .
Speaker 2Choline is one of the big components of your bile , and if we are biodeficient or choline deficient I should say not biodeficient , choline deficient we're going to have an issue with our gallbladder . And how are we choline deficient ? We're not eating eggs and we're not eating liver , mainly the egg side . A lot of people don't eat liver . You can get enough choline from your eggs .
Speaker 2Liver is number one , eggs are number two for the source of choline , and if you're a vegetarian , vegan , it's a lot harder to get those Way harder to get choline , and so then you run into major problems , and so choline is probably one of the most common ones that I'll give out . I don't know if I in a sense have like a top five , top 10 that I can just list out which ones they are , but choline is pretty high up there and I give it quite frequently . And choline goes into other things too . That's how you make a seedle choline , which is really important to brain health and muscle health , and so you see it quite , quite frequently and if you don't have that , you're not making bile very well . Yeah , you can push herbs and stuff to help push it through , but I'm going to probably argue that you're going to need some choline support if that's showing up for that specific person .
Speaker 1For sure , for sure , and red meat does contain choline too , so I mean yeah how many people are skipping their steaks and stuff like that and only eating chicken . I think that was my . That was like everyone in my office this week . Oh , I only eat chicken .
Speaker 2It's so common .
Speaker 1Yeah , don't even read me . Okay , what else , what else , what else , what else .
Speaker 2Last thing is just like some quick things that people can do , like , let's say you're having a gallbladder attack . I've told people sip on lemon juice and water . Like a couple tablespoons of lemon juice and water . You can use beet juice as well . You know , it's like you know half a beet and the juice from a whole lemon . That can actually help calm down a gallbladder attack . So can a cold pack over your gallbladder on your upper right abdomen can help . Knowing , of course , the location of your gallbladder is also important . I had someone recently . They were told they had a pancreatitis and their pain is on the right side of their abdomen , so on the opposite side of where their pancreas actually is so kind of important . It wasn't their fault by any means , they were just told that . Yeah .
Speaker 1So sometimes I'll have people do like a beet challenge . So once again , trying to give you people all these like little things we can do at home .
Speaker 1When they drink , where they drink like 12 ounces of beet juice and see if their stool comes out red . If it does , it means that their gallbladder is probably moving too fast or it's not healthy enough to metabolize all of that betaine . So that's one that I'll do . Have them drink 12 ounce of beet juice , see if their stool comes out red . The lemon juice is awesome . The only thing I'll say on that is like lemon juice is . I mean I'll help with an acute one , but like it's a little bit slow sometimes . So I would say like , do at least 14 days of lemon juice and hot water . That's what I like in the mornings , but you can't sip it throughout the day , like you said . What else do I do there ?
Speaker 1Oh , I was going to say a lot of people are using castor oil packs . There we go , castor oil packs over the gallbladder , and I don't mind castor oil packs over your gallbladder , but I realized that you're forcing your gallbladder to actually make that movement and if you need a castor oil pack to feel well , I don't have a problem with it . Personally , I'll ask you your stance in a second , but it means you're pretty deep into a gallbladder issue If you can't fix your issue without doing like an aggressive castor oil pack over the gallbladder at night . Your gallbladder is pretty messed up if you're having to do castor packs , so what do you think , doc ? Do you ever see those in your office ? Yeah , I do .
Speaker 2Same kind of opinion with them . If it's helping , by all means you can do it , but I want to know the roots . And I mean it's making me think of one patient . I'm pretty sure that's the right way to do it . I'm pretty sure that's what they're doing , but it's such a hard thing because it's an insulin issue and they are type 2 diabetic and so like . And to change type 2 diabetes and put it you know , get it back to normal , that takes drastic changes in their diet and they're having a difficult time with that .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah .
Speaker 2Any final words .
Speaker 1We're almost at the end here . Any final words on gallbladder doc .
Speaker 2Super important , overlooked , like you said , oftentimes . Definitely seek a doctor that has the knowledge of the physiology and the biochemistry , because you've got to understand it to help clear it up , and there's a lot of supplements that go into it . Not everyone is the same and you know you're going to need a different protocol . There's not a set protocol . There's no cookie cutter approach to this . It's individualized . Otherwise , hopefully some of these little things that we've mentioned , some of the products , some of the , even the things you can do at home , like beet juice , can help .
Speaker 1Yeah . So back to it like I totally agree , totally overlooked , something that no one talks about . It's because the chemistry is hard and it's a secondary organ . It originally comes from the liver , all of these chemicals . So people focus on liver but they forget that they can still help the gallbladder . Both can have the same problem , both can have different problems .
Gallbladder Health and Potential Issues
Speaker 1But long story short , your gallbladder gets overburdened by toxins in the environment . It gets really sludgy and thick and it doesn't do what it's supposed to do and you suffer the ill effects . Every symptom you can imagine can come from that gallbladder . Anxiety is a huge one . Digestive issues is a huge one . As I mentioned , I use it to calm down that gut lining . If you don't have there's actually really good resources , if you don't have OptimaBio , you're seven times more likely to have a hypothyroid issue . And the second one that I saw was that people with low bile acid have more C-diff or gut bacteria the difficulty of gut bacteria is C-diff than any other population . So those bile acids really help to take care of what your liver's trying to accomplish , but they work together . Your bile is absolutely necessary and your gallbladder is the most important thing .
Speaker 1Maybe we'll cover another podcast . And what do we do if we've had our gallbladder removed and some of the different problems we run into there , both digestive and detoxification . So we'll cover that in another podcast , but for now this is it for today . Thanks , dr Gay , for joining me , and we will see you guys on the next podcast where we're going to cover some Q&A questions submitted on Instagram . Thanks a lot . All right , see you then .