Dr. Tabatha Barber explains how gallbladder removal disrupts bile flow, leading to nutrient deficiencies, SIBO relapse, and metabolic disease. Reduced bile impairs immune function and brain health. She argues treating SIBO with herbs or antibiotics fails without restoring bile function, and that avoiding healthy fats worsens the problem.
I think really what triggers me most with these women who've had their gallbladders removed and they're running to the bathroom and their doctors are saying, well, just avoid, you know, healthy fats, is that we also start to see they become not only nutrient deficient, right? And so immune function is not fully supported, our energy is not fully supported, our brain is not fully supported, but most importantly, they start to develop metabolic disease. And we know that that is at an all-time high. We just go, you know, anywhere and look around, but you could also do a simple Google search or ask chat and it's gonna show you the stats that are just crazy. And for so many women, we have 2 to 3 times greater risk than men to develop gallstones. But also when you look at the research after having the gallbladder removed, they're at a much greater risk of becoming insulin resistant. So kind of what I see when I speak with women, if they've had gallbladder, you know, issues, whether or not they still have the gallbladder intact and they just haven't addressed, right, the dysfunction of bile flow, we're seeing estrogen dominance, we're seeing insulin resistance, chronic fatigue, and, you know, again, weight loss resistance. And then of course, from a gut perspective, I start avoiding foods, I start limiting my diet because I think that is the thing that's causing me bloating. But in fact, one of the biggest things that bile does, again, as it circulates through the small intestine, is acts as our natural antimicrobial. So I will say to people when they come to me after multiple rounds of SIBO, you know, treatments, whether or not it was herbal or antibiotics, I say SIBO is a bile issue. If you only go after it with killing, you know, again, herbs or antibiotics, and you don't address the reason why it's allowed to proliferate in that small intestine, you will relapse. This will come back. And so it's helping that person in front of me with their symptoms, right, uh, to correlate, okay, when did all this start? Oh, I was, you know, going through menopause, and I didn't realize, because estrogen and bile also have a relationship here, just how much things shifted. I thought it was just menopause, right? Where all of a sudden— and I say this to women— yes, menopause can be a rocky road for some, but again, God didn't design you to all of a sudden at age 42 not be able to tolerate all these foods that you were able to tolerate before, and to not be able to get out of bed and do— you know, many of them are actually eating healthy and doing the right things. But when we see that that toxicity is burdening the liver and bile flow slows down and we're insufficient, It just makes this situation so much worse.
