Diet and gallstones

✍ Scribed by Seung Jae Myung; Myung Hwan Kim; Byeong Cheol Lim; Sung Koo Lee

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 22 KB
• Volume: 28
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0270-9139
• DOI: 10.1002/hep.510280540

✦ Synopsis

We read with great interest the article entitled ''Diet and Gallstone in Italy: The Cross-Sectional MICOL Results'' by Attili et al. 1 However, the authors considered the patients to be one homogeneous group, whereas stones can be divided into cholesterol or black pigment types based on composition. 2 High polyunsaturated fat diet has been described as a risk factor for cholesterol gallstones but not for black pigment stones. 3 Thus, if their purpose of the study was to elucidate the causal relationship between the diet pattern and gallstone formation, they should have separately analyzed patients with cholesterol and black pigment stones, respectively.

We also have examined the influence of diet on stone formation (cholesterol stones, 38; black pigment stones, 40). Contrary to the results of Attili et al., we found that a high cholesterol diet was a definite risk factor in cholesterol stones.