Can we be personal for a moment?
Good. Thanks.
We want to discuss a particularly serious condition that affects millions of people in our culture from middle age onwards. It is a condition known to be culture-specific, suffered by wealthy Westerners more than any other group of people. And its cause is said to be unknown to modern medicine. It’s called diverticulitis.
Diverticulitis is a pain in the butt for literally millions of people as it involves the colon and rectum. What happens is that the wall of the colon, or large intestine, weakens over time due to increased pressure of unknown cause. Pressure within the colon causes weakened areas to bulge outward, creating sacs for digested matter to collect and become infected. These sacs are called diverticula. When you have these bags, it is said that you have diverticulosis. When the diverticula become infected and inflamed, the condition is called diverticulitis, which can be as painful as appendicitis and can lead to rupture of the colon wall, a very dangerous situation. The key problem involved in this condition is the creation of increased pressure within the large intestine. It is the force of this pressure that causes the pockets to form.
So knowing what causes the increased pressure is essential to the prevention and treatment of this condition. There was a time when medicine thought that the diet might be too high in fiber, causing a blockage of digestion and increased pressure on the colon. But reducing dietary fiber did not significantly alter the condition. Too little fiber was then thought to prevent adequate elimination, and high-fiber diets were recommended. Unfortunately, this didn’t help the condition either. Diverticulitis is also as common among vegetarians as it is among meat eaters. While special interest groups promoting certain diets present research to support their dietary view as a preventative for diverticulitis, there is conflicting research to balance it out. Therefore, the overall research on diverticulitis has been inconclusive regarding the cause of the increased pressure in the colon that creates this terrible condition. And in the absence of knowing the cause, medicine may simply offer pain relief with medications, antibiotics for infections, and surgery for particularly nasty abscess pockets. As for prevention, the current suggestion is to eat more fiber, making the bowels need to have more frequent bowel movements.
Of course, one thing was overlooked in the medical research on diverticulitis. The most common reason for increased pressure in the colon is not really a medical problem, but a cultural one. That is why medicine has missed it. In addition, this cultural practice causes the medical profession to suffer from diverticulitis to a greater extent than their patients.
It all has to do with responding to Nature when she calls.
We live in a society that trains us from birth to retain our waste products. From the pressures of diaper training, the pressures of using public bathrooms at school, the pressures of working without the option of taking necessary bathroom breaks, or when a bathroom simply isn’t available, our culture has put pressure on us to contain us. Of course, this creates pressure on the colon. After all, one of the easiest ways to increase pressure in the colon is to close the anal sphincter while the intestine contracts.
Everyone has experienced this at one time or another. Perhaps the impulse arose when you were involved in a social situation that you couldn’t conveniently stop simply because you had to answer Nature’s call. Or it could have been while driving, and no rest stop or gas station was found. Even if there is a convenient toilet, some people feel uncomfortable defecating in a public toilet and prefer to wait until home. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that our culture makes personal waste management a problem that is not always easily solved, promoting procrastination instead of elimination. The result is increased pressure in the colon and the formation of diverticula.
In addition to retaining debris, there is the even bigger problem of retaining gas. The technical term for this is gas retention. It’s what most people are trained to do in public, from school days onward. This is the reason why diverticulitis is more prevalent among rich, professional Westerners than among poor people in third world countries. The higher your status, the less acceptable your flatulence will be. It seems that poverty buys the right to hang out when necessary, while wealth creates the need for more discretion. However, the sad fact is that fart pressure has to go somewhere. Either you expel gas or your intestines burst. The choice is yours.
Now you can see why medicine says that the cause of diverticulitis is unknown. A cultural taboo surrounds this subject, preventing its impartial and honest consideration. Interestingly, there was an article linking diverticulitis to gas retention. It appeared in the British medical journal Lancet in 1975. The article is titled “Flatus Retention Is Major Factor in Diverticular Disease.” But the information was ignored. Medicine seems more comfortable prescribing medications and surgery for diverticulitis than just telling people to poop and fart more often.
For those suffering from diverticulosis or diverticulitis, you can do your own self-study. Over the next three months, note how often you feel the urge to eliminate but find yourself choosing, for one reason or another, to hold it back. Pay special attention to your need to pass gas and how often you don’t. Do everything you can to allow your body to do what it wants to do. If you have a partner, you may want him or her to try this self-study at the same time.