Diverticulitis

Introduction

Imagine a health disorder that affects nearly half of every individual past the age of 60.

Is it heart disease? Or perhaps cancer?

Surprisingly, it’s neither of those. The disease that affects one out of every two individuals over the age of 60 is diverticulitis.

Undoubtedly, you’ve heard the term. But how much do you really know about this disorder? It seems that the odds are that if you live long enough, you just might develop it.

You can think of this disorder almost as a two-step health condition. The initial step is the creation of one or more pouches in the colon wall. These are weakened areas in the wall which poke through the colon. The pouch itself is called a diverticulum (when we speak of two or more of these we call them diverticula). This condition is called diverticulosis or diverticulitis.

As we age, our chances of developing these pouches or sacs increase. About 10 percent of all U.S. citizens past the age of 40 have at least one pouch. By the time the U.S. population reaches 50 between 20 and 50 percent of all individuals have developed them. And if you’re lucky enough to live to the age of 90, the medical community can say with some certainty that you have at least one diverticulum.

For the most part, you can have this condition and not even realize it. Usually there are no symptoms associated with it. If you suffer from cramps, bloating or even constipation, you might be plagued by diverticulosis and not realize it. Of course, those same symptoms are signals of several other health conditions as well. For the most part, though, this condition poses no problems.

When inflammation occurs

When these pouches become inflamed or infected, however, then the condition becomes known as diverticulitis. And that’s when more overt symptoms appear. The most common symptom of diverticulitis is abdominal pain. This is almost always accompanied by tenderness around the left side of your lower abdomen.

If the condition is infected, you’ll also experience a few other symptoms, too. If the constipation and the cramping don’t get your attention, then the nausea, vomiting and chills might alert you that something is amiss. About 10 to 25 percent of those individuals who develop these pouches eventually acquire diverticulitis.

And it really isn’t a disorder that you can avoid to ignore for long. It comes with a few complications. Diverticulitis can lead to perforations, tears or even blockages in your colon. It can even be the cause of bleeding and infections.

The medical community doesn’t have a definite cause for diverticulitis, but it’s widely accepted that a low-fiber diet plays a large role in its development. How do we know?

Well, we don’t know for sure. But scientists are able to make some comparisons across country boundaries. For the most part, this is a disease that is common in Western, developed societies. It’s virtually unheard of in the rural parts of Africa and India. These are two areas that processed and packaged foods have failed to penetrate so far. People still live on fresh foods and grains. The diet here is, by necessity, high in fiber.