A lithogenic diet is one that can increase your risks for forming gallstones, although it's typically used on laboratory animals as part of research studies. There's no guarantee that eating a lithogenic diet will promote stones or that following a non-lithogenic diet will prevent them. However, if you have certain risk factors or a family history of stone formation, avoiding a lithogenic diet may improve your odds.
Identification
Gallstones, also called cholelithiasis, are hard pebble-sized deposits that can form in your gallbladder, the digestive organ located just beneath your liver. Ordinarily, gallstones don't form if you have a healthy balance of bile salts, lecithin and cholesterol. When they do occur, they take the form of two different types, those made out of cholesterol and those composed of excess bilirubin in the bile. Most people who have gallstones won't have symptoms unless a stone blocks one of the biliary ducts and causes symptoms. When rats in lab studies are fed a lithogenic diet to induce stones, it usually consists of a combination of fat, cholesterol and cholic acid.
Effects
It's been shown that certain dietary habits are involved in the development of gallstones. Such a lithogenic-oriented diet includes a high intake of simple sugars and saturated fats, although whether or not dietary cholesterol, such as found in egg yolks and red meat, leads to gallstone development in humans is controversial. The process by which certain foods contribute to gallstones isn't known, although recent discoveries point to the regulation of fatty acid and liver cholesterol metabolism and excretion as possibilities.
Expert Insight
Ada Cuevas, M.D., and colleagues in Chile reviewed various studies looking at diet as a risk factor in gallstone formation, including calories, cholesterol, fatty acids, fiber, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals and alcohol. Their study was published in the "Journal of the American College of Nutrition" in 2004 and reported that the factors that seemed to be universally correlated to an increased risk for gallstones were refined sugars and carbohydrates. They noted mixed results regarding cholesterol, vitamin C and coffee. The most non-lithogenic foods were insoluble fiber from foods such as fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and nuts and seeds, as well as omega-3 fatty acids found in foods like salmon and walnuts.
Considerations
The MayoClinic.com cautions that no alternative therapies have been proven to dissolve gallstones, although they support a non-lithogenic diet if you are prone to the disease. They recommend fruits and vegetables, unsaturated fats and supplements of vitamin C, vitamin E and calcium, although the best way to get enough vitamins is from the foods you eat.
Warning
Contact your doctor as soon as possible if you have symptoms of a gallstone that blocks a duct. These can include pain in the right upper or middle upper part of your abdomen that may be constant, or wax and wane, and occurs within minutes of a meal; fever; yellowing of the skin and whites of your eyes; a feeling of constant abdominal fullness; clay-colored stools; nausea and vomiting.
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