Shannnonp

I should have said that it was five "F"s not four. The final "F" is Fertile.

The "five F's" helps trainee doctors to remember the usual patient with gallbladder disease: "fair, fat, forty,female and fertile."

Sexist as it sounds, it describes the group most frequently affected by gallbladder disease: overweight middle-aged white women with a history of several pregnancies. Excess estrogen may be implicated, since hormone replacement after menopause seems to increase the likelihood of stones.

I think we should be clear and accurate for anyone contemplating surgical removal of the gallbladder that a low carb diet presents no problem and is not a cause for concern.

First, low carb is not "high fat".

Second, excess fat in diet is a problem before the operation not after.

Third, the statement above "If you have had your gallbladder removed, you will be instructed to reduce your fat intake, however, because your body can only handle only a small amount of fat at a time." Is misleading. The body can handle completely normal amounts of fat with not problem at all.

The gallbladder, was designed as a storage system, probably through primative man eating a very high fat content diet. .It use to us today, although not entirely without purpose is still not essential. It is more likely that the result of "high fat" consumption post operatively will cause diarrhea. Perhaps a good reason to have some fat limitation. But diarrhea does not cause weight gain, quite the reverse. Even so this is quite rare.

The one thing that a study of the mechanisms of low carb tells us is that, in the absence of carbohydrate, it is not fat that makes us fat. The liver does not distinguish between fats. Cutting down on meat does not make much sense and pushes us into the "low fat" mindset.

In short there is no real metabolic, medical, or dietary reason why the absence of a gallbladder should be the cause of slow weight loss on an LC diet.