Q.Prolonged intake of oily snacks may lead to gall stone formation. Explain.

A diet high in oily/fatty food raises biliary cholesterol beyond what bile salts and lecithin can hold in solution, so the excess cholesterol precipitates as crystals that build up into gall stones in the gall bladder.

Bile, produced by the liver and stored/concentrated in the gall bladder, is a fluid that contains bile pigments, bile salts, cholesterol, and lecithin (a phospholipid) in a delicately balanced solution; the bile salts and lecithin together keep the relatively water-insoluble cholesterol dissolved in a stable form called a micelle. When a person habitually consumes large amounts of oily, fried, or fatty snacks, the liver secretes bile with a much higher cholesterol content than usual. If this cholesterol load exceeds the solubilising capacity of the available bile salts and lecithin (a state called 'supersaturation'), the excess cholesterol can no longer stay dissolved and begins to precipitate out as tiny crystals within the gall bladder. Over time, especially if the gall bladder does not empty efficiently (bile stasis, which fatty meals can also promote by altering gall bladder motility), these crystals aggregate and grow into larg …