"Colonic diverticulosis," lead investigator Dr. David A. Etzioni told Reuters Health, "is widely believed to result from a Western diet which is increasingly deficient in fiber. Diverticulitis -- a complication of diverticulosis -- is an infection of the wall of the colon that can range widely in clinical severity, from mild and self-limiting to life-threatening. Our research shows a dramatic increase in the rates at which younger individuals in the US are hospitalized for diverticulitis."
Dr. Etzioni of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and colleagues examined US national data for 1998 to 2005 including 267,000 patients admitted with acute diverticulitis and 33,500 who underwent elective surgery for diverticulitis.
The team found that in this interval, the age-adjusted admissions for acute diverticulitis increased by 26% (from 120,500 in 1998 to 151,900 in 2005). There was an 82% increase in patients aged 18 to 44 years, compared to a 36% increase in those aged 45 to 74 years. The rate of increase in surgery was also greater (73%) in the younger patients.
Dr. Etzioni added that his group suspects the increase is due to "more diverticulosis -- resulting from dietary risk." Other possibilities are that "more patients with diverticulosis are developing diverticulitis, or our healthcare infrastructure has an increasing propensity to hospitalize patients with diverticulitis."
Although the underlying cause of this emerging disease pattern is unknown, the investigators conclude that it "certainly deserves further investigations."
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