Urso or Ursodiol For Liver Disease & Alternatives
Vet Notes
First, and briefly: What is URSO?
It’s a compound isolated from BLACK BEAR GALL BLADDER.
In China, they harvest it from captive black bears in tiny cages with cannulas in their gall bladders which leak the URSO into bags. The bears seldom see light of day.
Except in the USA, science-nerds synthesized it LONG AGO so we don’t have to kill or harm Black Bears.
Except in China they have to use REAL Black Bear gall bladder because “The Spirit of the Bear” is only in REAL ursodehydrocholic acid.
OKay whatevs.
Who needs Black Bear Gallbladder?
Guys coming back from the Vietnam conflict with liver-failure from alcohol and chronic exposure to Agent Orange. That stuff grows livers back. Or so it’s said. But it saved a LOT of lives.
Now we use it with dogs, (canines) with hepatocellular damage, and enzyme leakage.
If the dog has Cushing’s Syndrome, it’s seldom enough to drop the ALK low enough for satisfaction.
But for many other types of liver stress it’s great.
At the end of this article, there’s a link to some of URSO’s background information and then, some of the alternatives that science-nerds and people into Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) are loving.
Stuff intended to save the lives of Black Bears.
Stuff like rhizoma coptidis, Berberine.
How to Use Urso:
It’s given once or twice a day. I take it. At high doses it can function as a laxative. It enhances and enriches the hepatobiliary cycle and can expel gall bladder sludge, perhaps even small inclusions and concretions. I would NOT have my gallbladder removed. But I would NOT have my gallbladder remioved without trying Urso for at least a month before doing so.
But, I hear, the pain of a sick gall bladder is too intense to suffer for a month. I am not a human physician.
https://drjohnson.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/urso_alternatives.pdf
