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Epidemiology of diverticular disease

Last reviewed dd mmm yyyy. Last edited dd mmm yyyy

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Epidemiology

Prevalence of diverticulosis increases uniformly with age, being <10% in those younger than 40 years of age, approximately 50% at 50 years of age, and 50% to 66% at over 80 years of age in developed countries. (1).

  • although this condition was thought to affect men and women with similar frequency, several studies have noted a difference between the two sexes
    • a review of hospital discharges from 1989 to 2000 in England (United Kingdom) reported that rates of hospitalization were higher among men younger than 50 years of age, but higher for women older than 50 years of age
      • a Canadian study had similar observations with hospitalization rate for men with diverticular disease of 45 per 100,000 in the 40- to 49-year age group compared with 38 per 100,000 in the same age group of women (2) .

Higher prevalence is seen in western and industrialized countries (USA, Europe, Australia etc) than in Africa or Asia where prevalence rates are less than 0.5% (1)

  • a low fibre content in the Western diet (when compared to Asian and African diets) has been linked to this difference. It is assumed that longer stool transit time resulted in the development of diverticulae. (3)

Reference:

  1. Matrana MR, Margolin DA. Epidemiology and pathophysiology of diverticular disease. Clin Colon Rectal Surg. 2009 Aug;22(3):141-6.
  2. Weizman AV, Nguyen GC. Diverticular disease: Epidemiology and management. Canadian Journal of Gastroenterology. 2011;25(7):385-389.
  3. Tursi A. Current and evolving concepts on the pathogenesis of diverticular disease. J Gastrointestin Liver Dis. 2019 Jun 1;28:225-35.

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