![]() Occasionally, symptoms may be as minimal as indigestion and frequent belching. ![]() Gallbladder disease can manifest itself in many ways. All in all, it’s estimated that about 20-25 million Americans have gallbladder disease. Women have a slightly higher risk than men, and genetics play a role. So a lot of these fad diets where people drop significant weight in short periods of time are putting people at risk. Ironically, rapid weight loss also increases the likelihood of gallstones. It’s believed that high-fat diets contribute to the bile becoming over-saturated, causing gallstones to form. The gallbladder acts as a reservoir for bile, a substance produced by the liver which helps the body digest fat. ![]() So it’s not a surprise that numbers are trending upwards. Gallbladder disease is linked to two other health problems that are on the rise in young people: obesity and diabetes. I’ve even had to remove gallbladders from teenagers. Now, patients with symptomatic gallstones tend to be in their thirties or forties. Gallstones can appear in a person of any age, but the average age when they became a problem used to be when a person reached his or her forties, fifties or sixties. What’s more, the patients showing symptoms of gallbladder disease are younger than they ever were before. But recently there has been another bump in the number of gallbladder removals, both nationwide and in our local community. It made sense there would be an increase since the new procedure was a lot safer for patients and sped up recovery time. About 20 years ago when the laparoscopic procedure was first perfected, there was a big bump in the number of gallbladder removal operations in the United States.
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