In Health Watch:Gallstone disease is a leading cause of gastrointestinal illness in western countries, including the United States.Now, a new study says patients taking statins for other health problems may also lower their risk of developing gallstone disease.Catherine Dolf has more.Each year, seven hundred thousand Americans have their gallbladders removed due to gallstone disease.Cholesterol- lowering drugs called statins may decrease the risk of the disease and surgery which follows.Dr. Michael Bodmer says, "Statins actually act in the liver in doing so they reduce cholesterol formation in liver and this transforms to lower blood levels of cholesterol but maybe also of lower levels in the gallbladder."Dr. Michael Bodmer , of University Hospital in Basel, Switzerland, and colleagues compared patients who had their gallbladders removed, those who did not, and the proportions in each group taking statins to treat other illnesses.The study, featured this week in JAMA, Journal Of The American Medical Association, looked at data from the united kingdom.Dr. Bodmer says, "And what we find in these comparison between these two groups is that patients who use statins were less likely to have the gallbladder removed than patients who did not use the statins."Researchers also studied how long a patient needed to take statins before this risk was reduced.Dr. Bodmer says, '"What we found is about you have to take one or one and a half years of statin therapy to have an association with a lower risk of gallbladder disease followed by gallbladder removal."Catherine Dolf, the JAMA Report.