Gallbladder Disease 101

Gallbladder Disease 101

Over 20 million Americans have gallblader disease. About one million new cases of gallbladder disease are diagnosed annually. Gallstones cause more than 800,000 hospitalizations every year in the United States. Gallstone attacks frequently occur after eating meals high in fat content. The most common treatment for gallbladder disease is laparoscopic cholecystectomy.

If you have been diagnosed with gallbladder disease or gallstones, or if you are wondering whether you may have them, here's a guide to everything you need to know about gallbladder disease and gallstones:

What Are Gallstones?
An illustrated discussion that explains how gallstones are formed.

What Causes Gallstones?
A look at different types of gallstones and the factors involved in the formation of gallstones.

Who Is At Risk For Gallblader Disease?
A short list of risk factors for those most at risk of developing gallbladder disease.

Dieting and Gallstones
Surprising information about how dieting affects risk for gallbladder disease.

Symptoms of Gallbladder Disease
Use this simple list to determine if the symptoms you are experiencing are consistent with gallblader disease.

How Are Gallstones Diagnosed?
A look at diagnostic tests and procedures to determine whether gallstones are present.

Laparoscopy
The most common treatment for gallbladder disease is laparoscopic surgery. Here's a look at what happens during this type of surgery and what to expect during recovery after laparoscopy.

Treatments For Gallbladder Disease
A list of traditional and alternative treatments for gallbladder disease.

What Is The Treatment For Gallbladder Disease?
A detailed discussion about treatment options for gallbladder disease.

If you suspect you may have gallbladder disease, see your healthcare provider for an accurate diagnosis and treatment. Undiagnosed gallstones can cause serious problems if they become trapped in the bile duct. The symptoms of gallbladder disease can mimic those of other conditions including heart attack making an accurate diagnosis extremely important.

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Are Clues to Kawasaki Disease Blowing In the Wind?

Clues to the origins of a mysterious childhood disease may be blowing in the wind.

Kawasaki Disease is rare, and its characteristic prolonged fever is often mistaken for a mild viral infection. But it’s actually an inflammation of the blood vessels that can cause damage to the heart, sometimes despite treatment.

The cause of the disease, which strikes kids in Japan far more frequently than in other countries and is most often seen in the U.S. in Asian- and African-Americans, isn’t known. The thought is that there’s some genetic predisposition to KD, and then some environmental trigger that brings on the disease in susceptible kids.

Now a new study finds the ebb and flow of Kawasaki cases? is correlated with a wind that blows only at certain times of the year, starting in central Asia and heading south and east across Siberia, Korea and Japan before crossing the Pacific Ocean and hitting the U.S. west coast.

Jane Burns, an author of the new research and a professor of pediatrics and director of the Kawasaki Disease Research Center at U.C. San Diego and Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego, tells the Health Blog the pattern seen in KD cases is unlike other diseases such as the flu. Cases mount during the late fall and first of the year, peaking in March, then ease off. There’s a second mini-peak during the summer and then the number of cases hits a nadir in September and October, she says.

She sees 15 to 17 new cases a month during peak season and only one to two during the trough.

The research, published in Nature Scientific Reports, shows a correlation between the wind patterns and the disease — when the wind heads east across Asia and to the U.S. west coast, cases mount, then decrease when the wind blows from the Pacific towards the north, in a westerly direction, Burns says.

Of course, this is only a correlation, and Burns is the first to say that the research can’t prove the winds are carrying any type of infectious agent or some type of pollutant that causes the disease. But research is pressing that question.

Ian Lipkin, a renowned “virus hunter” from Columbia University, is investigating the contents of dust sampled from the air high over Japan in March. “Once we get an idea of what the range of organisms is that’s in the wind, we’ll have a better idea of what we’re looking for,” says Burns.

But even without a known cause, pediatric hospitalists up and down the west coast are reporting cases of Kawasaki Disease to Scripps Institute of Oceanography. “The distribution, location and timing of cases will be analyzed with respect to wind patterns,” says Burns. If the winds can predict increased disease activity, alerts could go out to urgent care facilities and ERs to be on the lookout for possible cases, she says.

She says researchers haven’t identified other human pathogens that travel this way, but that African dust particles harboring a certain fungus are carried by winds all the way to the Caribbean, where the fungus causes disease in coral.

Image: Jane Burns/UCSD