Research by scientists in the Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre and the School of Physics at the University of Nottingham on the effects of various food ingredients on the gall bladder has been published this month online in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The paper, entitled “Effects of various food ingredients on gall bladder emptying” is open access in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
The gall bladder empties bile in the small intestine in response to a meal and this is very important to digest fat but the role of various food ingredients in contracting the gall bladder after eating is not well understood. In this work we explored the effects of 10 different food ingredients on gall bladder emptying in healthy volunteers. Fat caused the greatest gall bladder volume changes.
In a second study the gall bladder volume changes after eating fat correlated well with one of the chemical signals that the small intestine releases after eating fat (a small peptide called cholecystokinin).
Improved knowledge of how to stimulate bile release from the gall bladder using foods could improve performance of cholesterol-lowering plant products.
Read more about research in Gastrointestinal MRI.
The University of Nottingham School of Medicine Nottingham, NG7 2UH
email:GI_MRI@nottingham.ac.uk