How To Prevent Gallstones With Everyday Foods
Hoping to avoid gallstones while doing nothing to actually prevent them from forming is like hoping your car will not run out of fuel while never visiting a gas station. If you are serious about preventing gallstones, in other words, it is important to regularly feed your body the nutrients it needs to maintain a clean, well-functioning gallbladder.
Here are some useful tips for preventing gallstones with everyday foods:
1) Juice Fresh Fruits and Vegetables Daily
The gallbladder is designed to work in conjunction with the liver to digest food and eliminate toxins. But when one or both of these vital organs gets clogged up due to poor nutrition or toxic buildup, cholesterol can crystallize with calcium to form gallstones. At this point, it becomes much more difficult to break these stones down and prevent them from further complicating your health.
Juicing fresh, alkalizing fruits and vegetables, however, can help quell inflammation and enzymatically detoxify both your liver and gallbladder on a regular basis. Raw, unfiltered apple juice, which is rich in pectin, will help soften and disintegrate any existing gallstones, as well as prevent new ones from forming.
Lemons, celery, tomatoes, and beets are also excellent additions to any daily juicing regimen.
2) Eat Enough Healthy Fats
Though some experts encourage gallbladder patients to avoid fats altogether, especially when they have already had gallbladder surgery, certain fats are actually helpful in warding off potential and existing gallstones.
Olive oil is often included in many gallbladder detoxification regimens, for instance, and healthy saturated fats from coconut oil and grass-fed animal products actually help synergize the assimilation of important nutrients from other foods that are responsible for maintaining a clean liver and gallbladder.
Just be sure to avoid toxic fats such as soybean and canola oil, which come from a class of fats that are a primary cause of disease-causing inflammation. Chronic inflammation, as we have covered before, is responsible for causing high cholesterol, as vegetable-based and hydrogenated oils are dangerously high in omega-6 fatty acids compared to omega-3 fatty acids.
By taking more omega-3-rich fish oils and eating only animal fats that come from hormone-free, pasture-based animals, you can help naturally lower your cholesterol and take a significant toxic burden off your vital organs.
3) Supplement With Either Sunflower or Non-GMO Soy Lecithin
One of the easiest and quickest ways to dissolve gallstones is to supplement with lecithin derived from either sunflower or non-GMO (genetically-modified organism) soy. As it turns out, lecithin, a fatty substance made of choline and inositol, is a primary component of cell membranes, and requires high amounts of bile to digest. When it enters the liver after ingestion, lecithin is dissolved into this bile, and in the process hardened gallstones are also dissolved.
"A low lecithin concentration in the bile may be a causative factor for many individuals with gallstones," writes Michael T. Murray, N.D., in his book Textbook of Natural Medicine, 2nd Edition, Volume 2. "Studies have shown that taking as little as 100 mg (milligrams) of lecithin three times per day will increase the concentration of lecithin in the bile, while larger doses (up to 10 g) produce even greater increases."
4) Supplement with Apple Cider Vinegar and Malic Acid
This unique home remedy is hailed by many as a safe, surefire way to eliminate gallstones without the need for surgery or drug interventions.
Mixing apple cider vinegar (ACV) with malic acid - apples and freshly-pressed apple juice are naturally rich in malic acid and other important softening substances, so this is another option -- and drinking it as part of a gallbladder flush is highly recommended for gallbladder health.
5) Add Some Extra Turmeric To Your Meals
Studies have shown that turmeric, a spice composed mainly of curcumin, is a powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory food that helps maintain a healthy gallbladder. As it turns out, turmeric helps improve the solubility of bile, which means the body has a much easier time breaking down substances that would otherwise form into gallstones.
Dr. Andrew Weil, M.D., suggests supplementing three times daily with at least 300 mg of curcumin in order to improve bile composition. He also suggests eating foods high in calcium, taking extra vitamin C (you can also take camu camu berry or acerola cherry powder for natural vitamin C), and limiting intake of refined sugar in order to prevent and treat gallstones.
