← The FormularyDigestionOx bile
Also known as Bovine bile extract, cholic acidExactly what it sounds like. Read the warnings first.
This is a medical supplement wearing a wellness label, and it should be treated as the former. The people it genuinely helps are those who no longer make or store bile properly — most commonly after gallbladder surgery — and for them it can make fatty meals tolerable again. For everyone else it is solving a problem they do not have. It is also one of the few things on this shelf with a real do-not-take: gallstones and bile duct obstruction. Not a fat blocker, not a weight product, and not a licence to eat badly.
Dried bile from cattle, standardised here to 40% cholic acid. Bile is the detergent your liver makes to break fat into pieces small enough to absorb.
Bile salts emulsify dietary fat so that lipase can get at it, and they carry the fat-soluble vitamins across the gut wall. Without enough, fat passes through largely undigested, which is as unpleasant as it sounds.
Supplies bile salts to a meal. Whether that helps depends entirely on whether you were short of them.
People who struggle with fatty meals, particularly after gallbladder removal. Not for general use, and not for anyone with a bile duct or gallstone problem.
With the meal, never on an empty stomach. Reduce the dose if stools loosen.
If you needed it, easier heavy meals. If you did not, nothing, or looser stools.
Grade C as a supplement. Clinical use is established in bile insufficiency; that is a medical context and not a claim we can make on a shelf.
Read the labelDO NOT USE with gallstones or a blocked bile duct. Bovine-derived. Loose stools at too high a dose.
Evidence grades describe how well an ingredient is studied — A well-supported, C emerging — not a promise of results. Educational, not medical advice. Doses are typical ranges; follow the label on the product.