“Diverticulitis is actually a very common disorder and it’s really become apparent that we need to think of ways to prevent diverticulitis given that it affects so many people,” Dr. Andrew Chan, the study’s senior author, told Reuters Health.  Dr. Chan, is a researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.

“To date, there really has been very little research done in this area, so we were interested in really understanding what places people at risk for diverticulitis, and what among (those risk factors) are modifiable so that we can try to advise people to do what they can to either prevent their first episode of diverticulitis or if they’ve had diverticulitis, potentially prevent a future episode,” he told Reuters Health.