RNS: Diverticulosis, March 2009
TIME: 2:15
URL: http://www2.med.umich.edu/prmc/media/newsroom/details.cfm?ID=1061
U-M Health Minute: Today’s top health issues and medical research
Keep your colon healthy with exercise, healthy foods
U-M expert says regular colon cancer screening should start at age 50.
Suggested lead: Most of us prefer not to talk about colon health and take those functions for granted. But many conditions can affect colon health, particularly as we age. A University of Michigan Gastroenterologist discusses diverticulosis and its symptoms and complications, and reminds us that regular colon cancer screening should start at age 50. Here is Andi McDonnell with more.
Most adults would rather keep talk about colons behind the bathroom door.
It’s time to talk, says Dr. Kim Turgeon, (MD, FACP), gastroenterologist in Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan Health System. . . .
“Diverticuli are little out pockets in the wall of the colon that are covered by the surface of the colon, kind of like a balloon pouching out in an area of weakness. We think they come where blood vessels go through the muscle wall so that they make that area weaker and more susceptible from pressure on the inside being blown out.”
“Colon problems are actually quite common throughout a person’s life, from childhood, teen years, young adult as well as adults, but over the age of 50 we start to worry about colon cancer and that’s why we begin our screening of the colon at the age of 50.”
Diverticuli are sometimes more common when there is persistent constipation, which causes people to strain to pass stool that is too hard. The high pressure from the strain causes the weak spots in the colon to bulge out and become diverticula.
While not dangerous in and of themselves, if diverticula get plugged with waste they can become infected and cause diverticulitis, which can result in serious complications, including cancer, and very rarely, death.
Turgeon explains . . .
“Of those people who get diverticulitis as a complication of their diverticulosis, so that’s the 15 to 25- percent, one in four of those people will go on to have a complication of their diverticulitis and those kind of complications can be fistula formation, abscess, perforation, [the] same type of complications we see with appendicitis.”
People who have diverticulitis could reduce complications and reduce diverticuli in the colon by keeping bowels moving well and avoid constipation.
Physicians recommend screening for colon cancer starting at age 50, even in healthy individuals with no history of colon cancer, colon polyps, other bowel problems or bleeding.
Andi McDonnell, U-M Health System News
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