How to avoid gallstones

Gallstones are like pearls — very, very painful pearls. Built from layers of cholesterol or calcium salts, they grow slowly and silently in your gallbladder or bile ducts the way a pearl grows inside an oyster. While most gallstones never cause a problem, some trigger exquisitely painful attacks and ultimately have to be treated with surgery or medications. Fortunately, as these guidelines will show, there's plenty you can do to lower your chances of developing these painful "rocks" and to prevent their return if you've had them.

Aim for a healthy weight and a trim waist Being overweight more than triples your odds for gallstones, and extra pounds around your middle is especially dangerous.

In a Harvard School of Public Health study of more than 42,000 women, those whose waistlines measured 91 centimetres (36 inches) or more were twice as likely to have gallstones that required surgery than those whose waists measured less than 66 centimetres (26 inches). If you're not within your healthy weight range now, losing extra pounds slowly and steadily is the best way to protect yourself.

The more weight you gain and lose repeatedly, the higher your risk of gallstones. Researchers at the University of Kentucky Medical Center found that men who lost and regained as few as 2.3 to four kilograms (five to nine pounds) in five years had a 21 percent higher risk of gallstones compared to those who maintained the same weight. Men whose weight fluctuated by 4.5 to 8.5 kilograms (10 to 19 pounds) raised their odds by 38 percent. Weight-cycling nine kilograms (20 pounds) or more increased risk by 78 percent.

A diet rich in magnesium can lower gallstone risk by 30 percent, indicates a University of Kentucky study. Men with the lowest risk had a daily intake average of 454 milligrams a day. A standard multivitamin has about 100 milligrams.

The following 10 foods deliver a big dose of magnesium: almonds black beans, brown rice, flaxseed, halibut, pinto beans, pumpkin seeds, cooked spinach, salmon.

A low-fat diet isn't necessary; in fact, cutting out too much fat could cause problems. Eating regular meals that contain a little fat helps prevent gallstones by prompting the gallbladder to empty, pumping bile acids into your digestive system to help digest your meal. But the type of fat you eat does matter.

In studies from Denmark and France, people who ate more saturated fat (found in fatty meats, ice cream and cheese) were more likely to develop gallstones. Getting more of your fat from olive and canola oils, nuts and fatty fish is a better idea.

Eating 40 grams, or eight teaspoons, of sugar a day, or a serving of sweetened breakfast cereal plus a couple of cookies after lunch, doubles gallstone risk, according to University of Kentucky researchers. Experts think that the increase in cholesterol in the bloodstream, which is triggered by the surge of insulin that happens when blood sugar rises, is problematic. On the other hand, opting for a high-fibre diet will protect you against gallstones by whisking cholesterol (found in bile acids) out of your body.

Enjoy coffee 

A cup or two of coffee in the morning could slash your risk of gallstones by 40 percent, say researchers who tracked the gallbladder health of more than 46,000 men for a decade. Components in coffee stimulate the release of bile acids and lower levels of stone-forming cholesterol in bile fluid.