Lamellar Bodies in Human Gallbladder Bile

Two topics are covered in this chapter: a) current knowledge on cholesterol biliary lipid carriers, with particular emphasis on whether biliary lamellae are real structures existing in bile or methodological artifacts and, b) the effect that ursodeoxycholic acid treatment exerts on biliary lipid carriers. Lamellae are real lipid structures occurring in bile as they can be isolated and characterized with different techniques, including quasielastic light scattering, that cause little or no physical perturbation of bile. Ursodeoxycholic acid treatment increases the percentage of cholesterol carried by biliary lamellae.