Case Study: Vegan diet settled gall bladder disease
by Sue Kira, Naturopath & Clinical Nutritionist
Client name and identifying information changed
Brett was in his mid-20’s when he first saw me, just after he’d been told that his gall bladder was diseased and needed to be removed. But first he had to go onto antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs before it was safe for him to have the operation. So Brett wanted to see if I could help him support his body through this journey.
My advice was to continue to take the drugs to help calm his gall bladder, and to also go onto a vegan diet, which was low fat, so he didn’t eat anything to upset his gallbladder.
He normally ate a lot of red meat and rich creamy foods, but he was happy to have a vegetable based diet because he felt so sick at that time and couldn’t really bear to eat anything else.
We also arranged a ‘cocktail’ to drink daily with turmeric powder, glutathione powder, and slippery elm powder mixed into some vegetable juice. We also included some rosemary oil for Brett to gently rub over his gallbladder area to help reduce inflammation. I also advised him to go on gentle exercise walks at the beach or parks so his lymphatic system could slowly move the poison from his gallbladder.
Against my advice, Brett decided not to take any of the medications that had been prescribed by his doctor as he intuitively felt they would make things worse, and he also felt my additional advice sounded good, so he just stayed with our plan for several weeks.
When he returned, he told me he felt very normal, and had been to his doctor for some tests. His gallbladder had completely healed and was no longer in need of an operation, which was a great result and a credit to him for sticking with it.
Brett decided that this diet really suited him so he decided to continue with it.
Brett came back to see me when he was in his 30’s, looking to conceive his first child with his wife. He wanted to check that all his levels were fine, because he wasn’t sure if his B12 and other nutrient levels were ok, even though he felt good. This was a very sensible thing to do, considering that making a baby takes two healthy people.
We ran some tests and the only thing that was out was his zinc level, so I put him onto a zinc supplement to pick things up quickly and told him how to add more zinc to his diet with pepitas (pumpkin seeds).
There are other zinc rich foods, but they are also rich in copper, so he was happy to add some extra seeds to his morning muesli and also make a dip with avocado and pepitas and add pepitas to his paleo style seed bread.