Diverticulitis

About a year ago a research article (one of many in this area of study) reported that studies done had found that a vegetarian diet could protect against a common bowel disorder called Diverticular disease.

Diverticular disease is at its highest in England and America and is often called a disease of the western civilisation because we are such huge meat eaters. It affects the colon or large bowel and can occur from not eating enough fibre. Some of the symptoms are stomach pains, bloating and alternating diarrhoea and constipation. The reason vegetarians don’t get it as much is that they have more fibre in their diet.

Diverticular disease occurs when small pockets or pouches occur in the bowel. These pockets (diverticula) can get inflamed or infected and cause symptoms. When the pouches become inflamed it’s called diverticulitis.

Dr Francesca Crowe at the Cancer Epidemiology Unit at Oxford University examined the link between a vegetarian diet and fibre in relation to Diverticular disease. They came upon 47,033 health conscious British adults who were taking part in a European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), another study at Oxford and from there they used 15,459 people who were vegetarian for their study.

It took them about 11 ½ years and after that 812 of these people had Diverticular disease of which 806 had to go to hospital and six died so this can be serious stuff.  They looked at factors like smoking, alcohol and weight of these people in the study as well to make sure that this did not hamper the results and came to the conclusion that vegetarians had a lower risk of Diverticular disease than people who eat meat and that the people involved who ate about 25g of fibre a day had lower risks of going to hospital or dying from the disease compared to people who only had about 14g of fibre a day.

Studies have shown that many people do not meet the requirements of fibre per day of the daily intake. These findings support the fact that fibre foods such as wholegrain cereals and fruit and vegetables are so important for our health. They include wholemeal breads but given that so many people have sensitivities to wheat and yeast these days you need to look into whether you are one of those people since the sensitivity will cause inflammation in your body despite the fact the fibre is good for your colon and bowel.

Researchers have concluded from this that modification of diet is important to prevent Diverticular disease however there is still ongoing research before these conclusions are taken to the public.

This study is only one reason why we need to eat fibre. There are many more. Also there are many more reasons why we need to eat fruit and vegetables as many of you already know. So to keep it simple make sure you eat 3 different coloured vegetables daily and three fruits daily unless you have problems metabolising sugar or are diabetic.