Bile is a liquid compound produced in the liver that helps your body break down the fats you consume. It also plays a critical role in detoxification.

These benefits make adequate bile production highly relevant to bone health. Today, we'll have a closer look at what bile is, its functions, and how it impacts your bones.

Then you'll learn how you can use your diet to increase your body's production of bile.

The Role Of Bile

Bile is a greenish-yellow secretion of the liver. It consists primarily of water and electrolytes along with compounds like bile salts.

Bile is continually produced by the cells of the liver and then stored in the gallbladder. After you eat, your body delivers bile into the digestive tract where it serves several purposes.

Perhaps the most important quality of bile is its ability to emulsify fats. Without this emulsification process, the body would be unable to digest and absorb the healthy fats in your diet. Because certain nutrients are fat-soluble, this process also makes it possible for your body to absorb a variety of essential nutrients.

Bile also binds to waste products that your body needs to eliminate, including dietary cholesterol.

The third major role of bile is similar to the second. Bile facilitates the removal of toxic compounds like bilirubin. Bilirubin is a waste product naturally created by the breakdown of red blood cells. But bile also binds to toxic compounds in the body, then carries them through the digestive system to be expelled.

As you can see from the above, sometimes bile is involved with removing waste and toxins from the body, and sometimes bile is involved with breaking down and absorbing compounds. When bile serves an internal function (instead of being expelled), then it can be returned to the liver to be recycled for reuse.¹

Synopsis

Bile is secreted by the liver, stored in the gallbladder, then delivered to the digestive tract. There it emulsifies fats so that they can be absorbed, which allows the body to absorb fat-soluble nutrients. It also binds to compounds like cholesterol and toxins to expel them from the body.

Benefits Of Healthy Bile Production

People with conditions that inhibit bile production suffer from liver disease and cirrhosis, which can lead to liver failure and death. That outcome makes clear how absolutely essential bile is.

Healthy bile production offers the following benefits:

Preventing Nutrient Deficiencies – Bile enables a vast array of bodily functions that depend on fats and fat-soluble vitamins. Without the ability to effectively absorb fat-soluble micronutrients such as Vitamins A, D, E, K, magnesium, iron, and calcium, you would develop nutrient deficiencies that could lead to health dysfunction. That includes bone loss and osteoporosis. Except for Vitamin A, all of those fat-soluble vitamins are Foundation Supplements. The ability to properly absorb these bone-building vitamins and minerals helps to maintain bone mass and bone strength.²

Binding And Eliminating Cholesterol And Toxic Compounds – Bile salts break down and bind to fats and oils in the water-based environment of the gut. This bonding gives bile the ability to flush undesirable compounds from the body, by transporting them through the digestive tract until they are expelled. Through this process, bile removes about 500 milligrams of cholesterol from the body each day, helping to regulate cholesterol levels. Through the same mechanism, bile rids the body of wastes and toxins.³

Defense Against Infectious Agents – The same function that gives bile the ability to eliminate cholesterol and toxic compounds allows it to defend the body against some infectious agents. These agents are often large viruses that have a fat-based lipoprotein outer structure. Bile can break down these structures, bind to them, and remove them. Combined with its ability to eliminate toxins, this defense function enables bile to prevent a variety of diseases and conditions, including sepsis, herpes, parvovirus infection, and even psoriasis.⁴

Bile Promotes Liver And Gallbladder Function –

The liver is the body's filtration system. The work that bile does to remove toxins both supports and is part of that filtering process. Without sufficient bile, the liver becomes overworked and liver conditions are exacerbated. Bile helps to improve conditions like cystic fibrosis, biliary cirrhosis, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Bile salts reduce inflammation in the gallbladder, helping to relieve gas and bloating that can happen due to gallbladder dysfunction.⁵

Synopsis

Thanks to its role in fat-soluble nutrient absorption, bile helps prevent health-damaging nutrient deficiencies. It is also involved in the reduction of cholesterol and toxins by binding and expelling them from the digestive system. It uses the same process to defend against infection agents like certain viruses. Bile also supports liver function and improves liver health. It reduces inflammation in the gallbladder, which can prevent gas and bloat.

How To Increase Bile Production

You need sufficient levels of bile to remain healthy and to keep your bones strong. Fortunately, you can make dietary choices that increase bile production.

A study compared the bile acid levels of 36 vegans and 36 omnivores. It found that vegans had higher serum levels of bile. The researchers concluded that animal products increase the loss of bile acids because participants had to expel more bile in their fecal matter to digest those products.

In contrast, the vegans' digestive systems were able to retain and recycle more of their bile. Additionally, the study linked fiber intake to bile acid concentrations. Vegan diets tend to also be higher in fiber than omnivorous diets. That means that high fiber plant foods are the ideal bile-production boosters.

Following an 80/20 pH-balanced diet naturally limits the intake of animal products (which are acidifying) to 20% of your diet. Additionally, not all of the acidifying 20% will consist of animal products because many delicious and nutritious plant foods are also acidifying. That puts Savers on the right path to healthy bile production.

These are the top foods and herbs that benefit the production and function of bile:

• Artichoke*⁶
• Ginger⁷
• Lemon*⁸
• Milk thistle⁹
• Turmeric¹⁰
• Dandelion greens¹¹
• Okra¹²
• Beets*¹²
• Asparagus*¹²
• Eggplant¹²

*denotes Foundation Foods

Synopsis

Studies have found that vegans have higher bile levels than people who eat both animal and plant foods (omnivores). The 80/20 pH-balanced diet naturally limits animal products and thus favors bile production. See the list above for foods that support healthy bile levels and function.

What This Means To You

If you're following the 80/20 pH-balanced diet recommended by the Save Institute, then your diet is already geared toward healthy bile production.

Another way to support your liver and your body's entire detoxification system is by doing a cleanse. That's why the Save Institute created the Osteoporosis Fresh Start Cleanse. It's a seven-day bone-building accelerator that gives your body a break from the daily toxins of modern life.

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When you provide your body with what it needs to digest food, absorb its nutrients, and dispose of waste and toxins, you are also supporting your bone health and every system in your body.

References

¹ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4091928/

² https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21236400/

³ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2712638/

⁴ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S092846800400104X

⁵ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4826599/

⁶ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12587687/

⁷ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3228982/

⁸ http://www.iscientific.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/6-IJCBS-18-14-6.pdf

⁹ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3959115/

¹⁰ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27228476

¹¹ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/J157v05n01_09?journalCode=iher20

¹² https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0308814606006492