29 Jul UK Doctors Refute Claims Gallstones Are Linked To Skipping Breakfast

If you’ve ever had gallstones, you know that they are probably one of the most painful things that can happen to a person. The pain is intense and persistent even when you only have a few, which is why most people probably cannot imagine the pain of having hundreds of gallstones. Quite unfortunately for her, one Chinese woman recently had to experience that pain, when doctors found over 200 gallstones in her gallbladder and liver.

Gallstones are small stones made of bile cholesterol that form in the gallbladder or liver. They may go unnoticed, until they get stuck in a duct, causing immediate and excruciating abdominal pain. The exact cause of gallstones is not always detectable, but doctors of this woman seem to think they know how she got them: by skipping breakfast.

Ms. Chen, 45, had apparently skipped breakfast and had been eating her meals at irregular hours for many years. The surgery, which took over six and a half hours, was done at Guangji Hospital in Hezhou, China. The surgeons were somehow able to remove all 200 stones in just one single operation, finding some stones that were as big as eggs.

Ms. Chen apparently started feeling abdominal pains 10 years ago, but was always afraid of surgery. When her doctors said she needed to have them removed, she initially refused, but later agreed to the surgery when the pain became too great to handle.

Dr. Quan Xuwei, who led the surgery, says that Ms. Chen’s irregular eating habits are the culprit behind her hundreds of stones. He says that many of his gallstone patients have skipped or rushed through breakfast. According to him, doing this leads your gallbladder to stop shrinking and expanding, causing high cholesterol levels (which can turn into gallstones).

But doctors in the UK have refuted Dr. Xuwei’s claim, saying that skipping breakfast would not lead to someone contracting gallstones. Dr. George Webster, the vice president of the British Society of Gastroenterology, said that the observation that skipping breakfast would cause gallstones would be “pure speculation, with no scientific evidence base to support it.”

Disagreeing with Dr. Xuwei, Dr. Webster believes that the reason for Ms. Chen’s stones may have to do with the increased rates of infection in bile ducts in China and Eastern Asia. He added that gallstones are a very common problem, and that their cause is often unclear to begin with.

According to the NHS, people who are overweight and over the age of 40 are much more likely to get gallstones, and women who fall under those two categories are even more likely to get them. They are also more likely to occur with dramatic weight loss or weight loss surgery.

So, if the images of Ms. Chen’s gallstones freaked you out, there are a few precautions you could take to try and combat gallstones. First, you can try not to become overweight. Second, you can try to never age over 40, although this might prove difficult. Thirdly, you can make sure to always eat breakfast, although it will most likely have no affect on the state of your gallbladder. But hey, who doesn’t like breakfast?

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