All in a name – medical terms

September 9th, 2010

 

Diverticular disease is an umbrella term which covers the physical changes in the colon wall and the effects from diagnosis to life-threatening complications and all the different symptoms which result from the disease. The muscular deformity with the characteristic bulging hernia or pouches called diverticula is known as diverticulosis. This definition is of a visible physical abnormality and does not indicate the extent of damage to the colon or describe its effects. Some people do not know that they have diverticulosis but after diagnosis about ¾ of patients have some type of symptoms. Read the rest of this entry »

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Keeping Moving

August 26th, 2010

  African schoolchildren 33 English schoolboys 70

 This is not the result of a rugby match but the start of the revolution in the treatment of diverticular disease (DD) in the 1970s. The figures are the average times in hours for food to pass through the digestive system (1) a measurement known as ‘transit time’ The difference in the two figures was attributed to the amount of fibre in the children’s diets. Researchers then tested this theory in adults, for example, adding fibre to a standard diet of five healthy young men reduced the mean transit time from 2.4 days to 1.6 days(2). People with DD had very little fibre in their diets and long transit times (3) (this was the medical treatment at the time so this finding was not surprising) Thus the fibre theory of cause, prevention and treatment of DD was born and dietary fibre has become an institution which has spread throughout medical research. As Dr le Fanu pointed out (4) it has never been demonstrated that those who get diseases eat more or less fibre than those who don’t, nor has it been demonstrated that eating more fibre will prevent diseases.

 There is another way of reducing transit time. Read the rest of this entry »

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Getting Personal With Diet

August 20th, 2010

When somebody is diagnosed with a disease, after months of symptoms and tests, they quite reasonably expect that a treatment is available for their condition. For example, inhalers for asthma, nitrates for angina, drugs to control Parkinson’s disease symptoms or vitamin C for scurvy. 30 years ago diverticular disease (DD), like scurvy, was considered a deficiency disease which could be prevented and treated by increasing the amount of fibre in the diet with wheat bran. Diet sheets and recipes were handed out and, with a few existing bowel drugs for symptoms, the disease was sorted out. Nothing could be done about the diverticula once they had been formed, so a high fibre diet was and often still is the treatment on offer.

     This is 2005, has anything changed since the 1970s? Read the rest of this entry »

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What is Constipation, Diarrhoea and Normal

August 12th, 2010

 

Scientists desperately try to put values on body functions to measure and classify symptoms. This enables statistical comparisons to evaluate the effects of diseases and treatments. Defaecation is a good example of this and also of the influence of history, fashions and personal opinions. Read the rest of this entry »

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What is Diverticular Disease

August 5th, 2010

What is diverticular disease

 The large bowel becomes deformed in diverticular disease. The muscles appear to be permanently contracted so that the colon can be shortened and more corrugated. The bowel wall becomes ruptured particularly next to it’s blood vessels and pressure forces the inner layers to protrude through the wall to produce the characteristic grape-like pouches on the outside of the colon. There can be few of these pouches – called diverticula – or the whole colon can be affected. Similarly there can be a wide range of symptoms, but nobody knows how to stop the possible progression of the disease from symptomless, to a chronic, debilitating and recurring syndrome and on to life-threatening complications. Death rates in this country started at nil and have risen throughout the 20th century. With any other complaint, this statistic alone would prompt an outcry for research into causes, prevention and treatment. Read the rest of this entry »

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