Chaos to Calm

Why your gallbladder deserves more attention in perimenopause

Sarah McLachlan Episode 57

Is your gallbladder the missing link in your perimenopause health?

Discover the critical role your gallbladder plays in hormone health and why its removal could be more detrimental than you think.

Key Takeaways:

  • Understanding the gallbladder's job: Learn how this small organ is essential for digesting fats, absorbing vitamins, and maintaining hormone balance, especially during perimenopause.
  • Recognising the symptoms: Find out the common signs of gallbladder issues, and why women over 40 are at higher risk.
  • Maintaining gallbladder health with food: Easy to implement tips on maintaining a healthy gallbladder and preventing gallstones with food and lifestyle changes.

Sneak Peek: "I firmly believe that we don't get given organs that are dispensable. Everything serves a purpose in our body."

The gallbladder is no different, having a significant role in our digestive and hormonal health, especially in perimenopause.

Listen to the full episode to learn why protecting your gallbladder - avoiding gallstones - is crucial, and how you can take simple steps to do that.

Links & Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

Send us a question for the FAQs segment or your feedback, we’d love to hear from you.

Find out more about Sarah, her services and the Freebies mentioned in this episode at https://www.ThePerimenopauseNaturopath.com.au

  • OPEN NOW: Discover how to use food as your most powerful medicine, smoothing hormonal fluctuations and easing perimenopause symptoms naturally. (Yes, you have more options than hormone therapy!) Say goodbye to feeling out of control and hello to feeling more like your old self every day, with PerimenoGO (because who wants to pause anyway?!)
  • The Perimenopause Decoder is the ultimate guide to understanding if perimenopause hormone fluctuations are behind your changing mood, metabolism and energy after 40, what phase of perimenopause you're in and how much longer you may be on this roller coaster for.
  • Been told your blood test results are "normal" or "fine" while you feel far from your best? Discover the power of optimal blood test analysis with The Blood Test Decoder: Optimal Ranges for Women Over 40.
  • For more, follow on Instagram at @theperimenopausenaturopath.

Hello and welcome to the Chaos to Calm podcast, episode number 57. I'm Sarah, the Perimenopause Naturopath, your guide through the journey of perimenopause. If you're over 40 and feeling like you're changing hormones are hijacking your mood, energy and weight, and you want to change that in a holistic way, then this is the place for you.

Because each episode I share with you my views on what the heck is happening in your body. Why you're feeling the way that you are and what you can do about it with actionable advice to help you feel more calm in control, less stressed and comfortable in your body again. I'm so glad you've joined me.

Let's get on with discussing today's topic so we can start shifting your perimenopause experience from chaos to calm. Today, we're going to be talking about a Probably little known organ, it's little known until it starts to give you some trouble. And then these days it seems to get whipped out really quickly.

Now, I firmly believe that we don't get given organs that are dispensable. Everything serves a purpose in our body. And today we're going to be talking about protecting your gallbladder and some tips around keeping it in your body. Because it does actually play a really important role in maintaining your hormone balance during perimenopause and right through life.

It's really important for our overall health. But many women in their forties face gallbladder issues and it gets removed really quickly these days. First signs of pain, bang, it is gone. And so in this podcast. And the blog that's going to go with it. I'm going to talk you through why keeping it and keeping it healthy is important.

And it's not particularly hard to keep it healthy. We just need to keep some things in mind. So we'll go through those today as well, because it is a small organ with a really big job. It stores and concentrates bile, which is nature's laxative, among other things, and our liver makes bile. And sends it to our gallbladder for storage there.

And bile is really important for digesting fats and helping to absorb fat soluble vitamins. It's also how we eliminate some waste because the bile catches it. And it, as I said, it's nature's laxative, helps us use our bowels. But also bile is made up of waste products from bilirubin, and it's how our body monitors or maintains our cholesterol levels as well.

So. Yeah, true life, but particularly in forties and fifties, when we've got perimenopause hormone fluctuations happening, it can actually impact your gallbladder and lead to issues like gallstones or inflammation in the gallbladder, which I'll talk through the symptoms of that shortly. But many, many women find themselves in that position, not had any issues, and then suddenly they're getting pain and discomfort and their gallbladder, next minute they're in for surgery and it's gone.

Have So in the US, gallbladder disease infects, affects 10 to 15 percent of adults, with women two to four times more likely to develop gallstones than men. So two to four times more likely. So that's approximately 14 million women in the US and 6 million men. And that's from the age range of 20 to 74, but you are more likely in your 40s and 50s to have an issue.

So there's things like pregnancy, oral contraceptives and hormone therapies, and even tamoxifen increase the incidence of gallstones. And as I said, your hormone fluctuations can impact that as well as a really significant factor is diet. And what I love about diet being a significant impact is, Oh, we can do something about that.

That's not too hard for us to work on. You don't necessarily have to choose between your menopausal hormone therapy or your oral contraceptives or implants or anything like that. The first protocol I would say would be to try diet because that's the biggest thing that goes into our body each day and it's also the one that we have the most control over.

So another thing about gallbladder is that you might have gallstones, but not actually know you've got gallstones. So there's a thing called silent gallstones and that's, many people have them. So they carry, they don't cause any symptoms, but they can still carry some risks to your health. And we will talk more about diet, but a diet high in refined and processed foods contributes a lot to gallbladder issues.

So first of all, let's talk about the gallbladder. What is it? What does it do? What's its role in our hormone health? So, as I said earlier, the gallbladder stores bile that's produced by the liver and releases it into the small intestine to aid in the digestion of your fats and fat soluble vitamins and help with using your bowels.

And so it's really important part because some of those vitamins like A, D, E, and K we can't absorb without fats. And fats are also need to be emulsified and so that they can be absorbed across the intestinal wall into our bloodstream there as well. So bodies are very clever and have evolved and know how to do all of these things.

Now gallstones, they usually form if bile is sitting too long in the gallbladder. So it's thinking about it being sluggish. When it's, when bile is not fully drained from the gallbladder. It can sit there and turn sludgy, and then you're more likely to develop gallstones from that. So there's two types of gallstones.

They form from cholesterol and calcium bilirubinate. So I mentioned before that bile has bilirubin waste products in it. And so what gives it its dark color? So, as bile becomes concentrated in your gallbladder, it becomes really saturated with cholesterol or calcium, and that in time precipitates into little crystals, and then those crystals in turn become stuck in your gallbladder mucous membrane, the lining inside of it.

And you get gallbladder sludge. So over time, these crystals grow and form large stones. I've got in my mind, when I'm thinking about these, my daughter's grow your own crystals project that she did as a science high school thing recently. And picturing this little jar that's our gallbladder with these little crystals developing there.

Yeah, but that's essentially what it is. And then if they come off. Or it break off from that mucus from where they're, you know, growing off the gallbladder wall and try and pass through the gallbladder duct. That's when you're in a lot of pain. So let's talk about the hormone gallbladder connection because bile does help detoxify excess estrogen from the body.

So we've talked in previous episodes about how estrogen is metabolized by the liver and sent to the bowels for elimination. And bile is a part of that in helping to bind and remove that estrogen product from our bowels. So when we're not having enough back bile released when the bile flow is sluggish or your gallbladder has been removed and there's not a storage, we're just relying on the liver dripping it through, estrogen clearance can be impaired.

So we also, we talked about that in that liver episode as well, how that means then that the longer that the estrogen sits in your intestines, the more likely that the bacteria beta glucuronidase is enzyme is going to break it the estrogen apart and it'll be reabsorbed into your bloodstream and then increase that relative estrogen excess.

So there's more estrogen than we've got progesterone to counteract that, and you're more likely to have irritability, heavy periods, PMS, things like that. Now, interestingly, in perimenopause or in menopause, and part of the reason why you're more likely to have a gallbladder issue is that estrogen helps increase cholesterol secretion and decrease your bile salt secretion.

So as your estrogen decreases, You get more cholesterol secretion and less bile being secreted. So, and part of the reason why the oral contraceptives and hormone therapies can impact bile and gallbladder health is that the progestins in them actually reduce the gallbladder emptying. So they're more likely to lead to that bile stasis where the bile is sitting in the gallbladder stagnating.

So, risk factors, let's talk about risk factors for, so the thing that we want is that our, our bile doesn't sit too long in our gallbladder. That's a big risk factor there is it's sitting there, it's not eating in a way or eating the foods in a way to help with the flow of gall, of the bile from the gallbladder.

But other things that are risk factors are, as I mentioned, the progestins, reduce your gallbladder emptying, lower estrogen, decreases the gallbladder, bile salts, and your bile secretion, obesity, the genetics that, I mean, you'll notice in some families, if you look up the line, all the women have had their gallbladder removed, most things that, allergies, other things, you can look back and you can see there's that genetic predisposition, but always with genes, we're remembering that just because We inherit something or inherit that gene.

It doesn't mean it has to be switched on. We do get to be in charge of whether our genes are switched on or not. And that's again, where diet is a really important influence there. Medications, there's besides the hormone therapies, there's other medications that can impact your gallbladder health, being female, having metabolic syndrome.

So if we're thinking about metabolic syndrome, that's a cluster of symptoms. Hypertension, so high blood pressure, dyslipidemia, so imbalance in your cholesterol, your blood livers, and fatty liver, and be part of that, insulin resistance, and abdominal adiposity, or fat mass around your middle, are part of metabolic syndrome.

And rapid weight loss, interestingly, so if you're taking or using the injections, or meal replacements, or things like that, and losing rapid weight, that can actually put you at risk of gallbladder issues. And prolonged fasting is another one and it increases, so fasting increases that biliary stagnation.

So your bile sits in the gallbladder for too long. It's just an, I've done that whole episode on fasting and why I don't like it and this is just another reason of why it puts you more at risk of other issues. And it really just isn't suited for most women in their forties and fifties. Bariatric surgery, because you have less capacity to eat and it impacts the health in that area.

But of course, any of these things, you are hopefully weighing up your pros and cons. The bariatric surgery may be more of a pro than the con of your gallbladder health being decreased or knowing that you have that risk, then you can do something about it and make sure that you eat. In a way that helps promote your gallbladder health.

So the reason why age is a, I'm sorry, Crohn's disease. If you've had an ileal resection, that's not going to be many of you, but if there is, then hopefully they've talked to you about that risk factor. And again, you can eat and do things in a way that helps support your gallbladder health. Now, age, why is age an issue?

Well, it's because apart from the hormone changes in women, that's what makes us more two to four times more likely to have gallbladder issues. But also generally, between 40 and 50, there's a decline in the activity of enzymes that manufacture your bile. So we get an increase in cholesterol secretion and over, over like too much cholesterol in the bile can lead to gallstones. Now another risk factor is a diet low in fiber and high in refined and processed foods. So if we're doing, and rapid weight loss is part of that, so if you're doing meal replacements, shakes, those highly refined and processed, or just eating a diet that's high in refined foods, Then you are more at risk of developing gallstones because those kinds of foods eating that way doesn't stimulate release of bile from your gallbladder.

So dehydration. I actually double-checked that when I was prepping for this episode. I was like, surely, I mean, I love for you to drink your water, by the way, that's 35 mils per kilogram of body weight per day is what you're aiming for. And that's capped at four litres though, please. Dehydration and low water intake can thicken your bile, of course, like it, if we're dehydrated, we have thicker blood and, and it impacts us in that way.

So of course it makes sense that it would do the same with bile. And so many people are chronically dehydrated, so it's a thing. I love that, that you need to drink water for your gallbladder and your bile. So, it also, it's interesting, like, less bile is going to impact your digestion as well. And we know that for women in perimenopause, one of the lesser known, or lesser realized symptoms is changes in your digestion, more bloating, constipation.

And reflux and things like that. So it, bile heavily impacts your bowel motion. So it's really important that you get that nice little spurt from your gallbladder each and every meal. And so you can use your bowels at least once every day. So what are you looking out for? What, what are you going to feel if you've got some gallbladder issues or gallbladder Gallstones, then your, many women experience symptoms like upper abdominal pain.

So it's upper right hand side, not the left upper, upper right. You might get bloatier, bloatier. Oh

gosh, that's funny. Bloating and nausea, so, and digestive discomfort. You particularly might get nausea after eating greasy or spicy foods. And so it can be quite sharp and pain there, and at extreme you might even get jaundice. Or have a change in your stool colour. So bile gives your stool a dark colour to it.

So if you've got really light, sort of yellowy stool, then perhaps you're not secreting as much bile. And you might even get a fever with your symptoms there. So just to summarize the symptoms that you might feel if you've got gallstones or gallbladder issues is that upper abdominal pain in the upper right, section near your ribs, bloating, nausea, just a general digestive discomfort, as well as perhaps jaundice, that lighter clay colored stool, and maybe even a fever there as well.

And particularly it might be worse for greasy or spicy foods or coffee or things like that. So. Yeah, well gallbladder removal will definitely relieve the pain, but thinking that it can lead to longer term digestive problems. If someone who's had their gallbladder removed, they may not be able to eat sort of rich dairy or rich meals, creamy or fatty things.

And we love our healthy fats because they do help support our hormonal health and many other things as well. So we don't want to lose that capacity to do that. Without a gallbladder, as I mentioned, the bile drips from your liver into your digestive system and that actually, so that's part of the reason why you might not be able to tolerate rich foods.

But it also can cause things like chronic diarrhea and lead to nutrient malabsorption as well. If you have chronic diarrhea, your food is not spending enough time in your intestines to aid with absorbing the nutrients.

And yeah, if you've got chronic, like if you've got silent or chronic gallstones, it can lead to quite serious conditions like fibrosis in your gallbladder. And you definitely I need to have that taken out, I'm sure. But talk to your doctor, of course, or most women would present to emergency in that circumstance there.

Now, let's talk about how you maintain your healthy gallbladder, because that's what we're here for today. Let's prevent the problem from happening rather than waiting for it to happen and then having to think about the pros and cons of having it removed. I think that's the great thing about food is and, and being interested in your health and how your body works is it gives you the opportunity for preventative health care and it gives you the option to do something.

Rather than waiting to see if a problem arises, we can just prevent the problem by giving our body what it needs at the start. So diet and nutrition. When I say diet, of course, I'm just meaning the food that we eat, like in the traditional sense of the word, not like calorie restriction and trying to lose weight, necessarily.

So what to eat? So you want high fiber. And we also want some fats because when we eat fats, it stimulates the release of bile. So low fat. There's no, no, not what we're doing. And even, you might even love me for this, have a coffee or two. And now my husband has a cup and it says after this coffee, I'm off for a poo.

There is nothing truer than that. And that's because coffee and the compounds in it stimulate a gallbladder contraction and bile release. So unfortunately many people rely on that coffee to use their bowels each day. So if we're eating high fiber, we're eating some fats, we're getting that bowel release.

You can have your coffee after you've eaten your food in the morning and just keep it at one. Let's go with that and it'll help support your gallbladder health and your bile release. But we don't want to rely just on the coffee for using our bowels. So that's where the high fiber foods and the fats come in as well.

Thinking about nutrients, some of the nutrients that your gallbladder needs are things like choline and it needs the proteins and essential fatty acids, those omega 3 fats that we can't produce ourselves. So, foods like eggs are actually magnificent because they contain all three of those things, protein, choline and essential fatty acids, amazing.

But don't forget your other protein rich foods, they have all the amino acids that your gallbladder needs, that your body needs to make bile. And release it. And those healthy fats are what's going to stimulate that contraction of your gallbladder and release of the biome. You want vegetables like broccoli and beetroot.

They're particularly great for your gallbladder health and water. I mentioned water, so definitely keep your water up. That's something to drink. Now things to avoid. Occasionally you might have some, eat out and have some hot chips or fish and chips or whatever it might be. You want to steer clear of those processed foods and those processed fats, the not healthy fats that you would have when you're eating out and having something deep fried or highly processed.

So that's like your canola oil, vegetable oils, rice bran, sunflower oil. I need to do a whole episode on that, but sunflower oil is like my minimum standard, I suppose, if I'm buying something processed, if it's got sunflower oil, I'll buy it. Otherwise we're literally eating nothing from a packet, really. So yeah, avoiding your canola, rice bran, vegetable oils there and the deep fried foods, keep it occasional.

It's not something we want to eat every day as yummy as they are. We are not eating those every day because those processed foods, those white refined foods are going, they don't stimulate release of your bile from your gallbladder and low in fibers. So they change your microbiome as well. And you're going to get that bile sitting in your gallbladder and increase your risk of gallstones also impacts your blood sugar levels and your insulin levels.

So there's lots of reasons not to eat processed foods. I think if you've been listening to enough of my episodes, you will know that by now. So actually one thing that's stress is a massive blocker for health and happiness Weight loss, and it's the biggest blocker that I see for women over 40 because I think it is the busiest phase of life.

There's no doubting that we've got so many competing demands and we're, we're told we can do all the things, we can do whatever we want, but actually what they mean is that we can do that, but we have to do it all. We actually literally have to do all of those jobs as well. So it's very draining and, and we're in a 24 seven on demand society.

So there's, we're always on, we don't have that downtime. Like when we were a teen and come home from school or whatever, there was no mobile phones. You just took the phone off the hook if you didn't want to talk to people. Go to your room and just hang out. No one could get to you. As a parent, it was the same.

You just did your stuff. If you were out, you were out. And if you were home, you could choose not to be, have anyone making demands or you just not answer the phone. No, no messages just pinging up randomly there. Then the other factor as well is that in forties and fifties, as we're moving into perimenopause and menopause, our progesterone levels are decreasing.

Progesterone is our inbuilt stress resilience hormone, so we are less resilient. We are more reactive to the stress laws in our life, and that's why you can feel overwhelmed and so overstimulated by everything that's going on for you is because you have less resilience to that stress. Now, that can impact your gallbladder function as well because it does change your digestive function.

And, and the stimulation or release of your bile there as well. And a lot of times when women are really stressed, they don't have an appetite and will tend to not eat or skip meals as well. And so again, you've got bile just sitting in your gallbladder for too long. So thinking about a lifestyle there as well.

And, and maintaining a healthy body composition is important too. Like, as I said, that abdominal adiposity puts you at increased risk for gallbladder issues. And fatty liver and inflammation in that area can radiate out to those other organs, pancreas and the gallbladder there. So we need to look after our liver and our gut and our intestines and make sure we're eating the foods that really support that.

So having a protein rich diet, making sure you're having lots of color. It's what I talk about all the time. Protein, fats, phytochemicals, the plant compounds, so the colors there are really important in your meals every day. Now, there's some lovely herbs and teas like dandelion. If you want to swap out some of your coffee, you don't need the caffeine cause you're staying, it's keeping you awake at night.

Dandelion root is, is a wonderful alternative. And these days there's some magnificent dandelion root coffees. That are really flavorful. So there's a whole, if you go to visit your local health food store, you will see there's lots of beautiful options there. I ordered one recently online. I think it's called no coffee.

It was really great. It came in different flavors. That wasn't really for me. I didn't love that, but I just drink it black or I have a collagen creamer that doesn't have any sweetener or anything added to it and really yummy. Even peppermint, peppermint tea. Most people have that in their cupboard, hiding out there.

It can be really supportive for your gallbladder health too, because it promotes the bile flow and prevents that stagnation. Just be careful if you do use peppermint tea if you've got reflux, because it can make it worse. There's a lovely peppermint tea after your meal is really helpful for your digestive system.

And, or chamomile. Chamomile's really lovely. It's so gentle, but it's really Supportive of your intestinal health. Globe artichoke is another one that you might see if you go to the health food store and you're looking for a tea, like a liver or a gallbladder supportive tea, you might see globe artichoke in there.

You could of course eat the artichokes as well. And the part of the reason that those dandelion and globe artichoke and even peppermint are helpful and supportive for your gallbladder is because they're bitter. So bitter and sour tastes stimulate our digestive secretions, including bile. Okay. And so thinking about that, using a bitter greens like rocket and the red oak even is a little bitter and even things like radish and kale and, and those sorts of things that not, not the sweet vegetables, essentially, it's even a bit of lemon on your food or vinegar.

Vinegar is really helpful with your blood sugar levels, but also because it is that acidic and has that acidity or that sour taste to it, it will stimulate your bioflow as well as your other digestive secretions. Now, don't forget, please do consult your, a doctor if you experience persistent abdominal pain, jaundice, or after eating, you're feeling really nauseous and sick and get your gallbladder checked.

In the meantime, though, you can start implementing those tips on food and drinks that I've given you there so that you can start keeping or loving on your gallbladder and your liver and keeping them healthy so you don't have any problems coming up. So that is all for today, I in short, in summary for you, maintaining a healthy gallbladder is important at all phases of life, but perimenopause, it will impact your hormone balance and your, and those perimenopause symptoms.

And we have the opportunity with food as medicine and incorporating those supportive foods that I mentioned and thinking about your stress management and building your stress resilience. And perhaps even some herbal teas or coffee replacements, then you can protect your gallbladder and have the added benefit of easing those perimenopause symptoms by helping to manage your estrogen levels and stop it spiking so high or so low.

Now if you are looking for more resources or you want to submit a question, please visit the show notes at www.chaostocalmpodcast.com, and while you're there, you can hit subscribe and make sure you never miss an episode or a tip from me. Yeah. Thank you for sharing your time with me today. I really always appreciate that.

And I'd love to know if you, have you experienced gallbladder issues during perimenopause, or maybe you have a question about your gallbladder, please do share your story and ask questions in the show notes so they can leave a comment or send me a question there. Now for the quickest way to take action and change what you eat and do so that it is.

Not just liver and gallbladder health friendly, but hormone friendly and brain health friendly and all the rest of it. Please do check out PerimenoGO. It's my four week program that teaches you what's going on in your body, what's driving how you're feeling and how to address that using food and lifestyle changes with a four week nutrition plan and recipes.

It makes it super easy for you to implement. And lose that stubborn weight, hold onto your gallbladder, reduce your perimenopause symptoms, and just feel amazing in your body and clothes again. Once again, thank you so much for listening and sharing your time with me today. I'm looking forward to exploring cholesterol health with you in the next episode to help keep your perimenopause experience moving from chaos to calm.

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