Diverticular disease: vegetarians protected
29 July 2011
A vegetarian diet may prevent diverticular disease developing, a new study suggests, and among meat-eaters a high-fibre diet may also be protective against diverticular disease.
Diverticular disease is the development of small pockets or pouches in the bowel. These pockets can become infected or inflamed - known as diverticulitis. Doctors suspect a low fibre diet is an important risk factor for diverticular disease, but few high-quality studies have been done to confirm this.
In a 10-year study of 50,000 people whose dietary intake was assessed at the beginning of the study, UK researchers found vegetarians had a 30 per cent lower risk of diverticular disease compared with meat-eaters (BMJ 2011; online Jul 19).
Non-vegetarians who ate no meat but some fish had the same risk of developing diverticular disease as meat-eaters.
However, a higher dietary fibre intake lowered the risk of diverticular disease regardless of vegetarian or meat-eating preferences.
Those who ate more than 25 grams of fibre per day had a 41 per cent lower risk of diverticular disease, compared with those who ate 14 grams or less of fibre per day.
The authors suggested a high-fibre diet speeds up the passage of food through the bowel, which could explain the lower rates of diverticular disease.
Last Reviewed: 29 July 2011
- 1. Crowe FL, Appleby PN, Allen NE, Key TJ. Diet and risk of diverticular disease in Oxford cohort of European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC): prospective study of British vegetarians and non-vegetarians. BMJ 2011; 343: d4131. doi: 10.1136/bmj.d4131. http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d4131.long (accessed Jul 2011).
