What is the gallbladder?

What is the gallbladder?

The gallbladder is a small organ tucked up under the liver, on the right side of your body. It is shaped like a swollen pea pod. The gallbladder’s job is to store and dispense bile—a fluid that helps digest fats in the food you eat. Similarly to a pea pod, the gallbladder is green. This is due to the bile inside the gallbladder. Bile is a mixture of cholesterol, bilirubin, bile salts and lecithin.

The gallbladder is connected to other parts of the digestive system through a series of ducts, or tunnels. These ducts help to carry bile and aid in the entire process of breaking down food. Ultimately, the bile finds its way into the common bile duct, where it passes through a special sphincter (a valve made of muscle), into the small intestine. Once there, the bile can mix directly with food that’s waiting to be digested. The common bile duct then empties bile into the duodenum, the first portion of the very lengthy small intestine.

Not all bile travels directly from the liver into the duodenum. Another portion of bile moves from the liver into the gallbladder through a special duct called the cystic duct. The gallbladder stores bile, which is available to be used for digestion on very short notice. If a fatty meal is eaten, then the gallbladder is signaled to contract and to squeeze some stored bile into the common bile duct where it’s passed into the small intestine to mix with food. All bile ends up in the small intestine, where it helps digest food.