• The effects of plant oils intake on Gallstone Disease: A systematic review
  • Moloud Ghorbani,1,*
    1. Student Research Committee, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran. Department of Community Nutrition, Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz. Iran


  • Introduction: Gallstone disease (GD) is a relatively common health challenge in developed and developing countries. The role of plant oils intake has been researched in some studies. The purpose of this systematic review is to investigate the effect of plant oils intake on GD pathogenesis.
  • Methods: Pubmed (Medline), Embase, and Scopus were searched for the existing literature up to December 2021. All clinical trials, cohort, cross-over, case-control, and animal studies that investigated the effects of dietary plant oils on the occurrence of GD were included. Studies containing incomplete information were excluded.
  • Results: 7 of the 3771 articles that we found had inclusion criteria. In one animal study, corn oil intake significantly increased cholesterol levels in serum and bile, cholesterol saturation index, cholesterol monohydrate crystals formation and gallstones formation. In two animal studies, safflower oil consumption caused a higher incidence of cholelithiasis, and in another research, safflower oil fed animals has a lower incidence of lithiasis. Consumption of olive oil and corn oil in one animal study, significantly reduced gallstones formaition. In another animal study by six oil groups (butter, palm stearin, coconut oil, rapeseed oil, olive oil, sunflower seed oil), no cholesterol gallstones were observed with the butter, coconut oil, rapeseed oil, olive oil and sunflower seed oil groups. In one animal study by three oil groups (coconut oil, olive oil, safflower oil), olive or safflower oil consumption caused a similar low concentrations of free cholesterol in liver and plasma. Coconut oil resulted in a slightly higher levels of free cholesterol in both hepatic and plasma.
  • Conclusion: Due to the different effects of plant oils consumption, recommendations should be based on the choice of adequate amounts of fats as well as following a healthy diet and lifestyle.
  • Keywords: Plant oil, Gallstone disease, Pigment gallstone