Diverticulitis Causes

I found this:

CONCLUSIONS:
A high-fiber diet and increased frequency of bowel movements are associated with greater, rather than lower, prevalence of diverticulosis.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22062360

 

Are you sure this is what you want to discuss? Those not afflicted with the ailment have little practical experience. Those who have little practical experience may not understand the difference between the ailment diverticulosis and the inflamed state of diverticulitis. Diverticulosis, which a huge number of older people have, will not bother you unless the diverticula become inflamed.

The acute inflammation stage is diverticulosis. It can be extremely painful. You may not be able to eat anything for days, fed through an IV tube drinking nothing but plain water for a few days while your guts heal. In its milder form, you just have to watch what you eat very carefully as most foods will go through you like water through a hose.

My personal opinion is: I don't give a d*mn what Dr. Google or Dr. Real Life says about the causes of the inflammation. They are not sure because it seems to have different causes for each individual. I know, from my own personal experience, that it is set off by different foods at different times and the only thing I have noticed in common are spice and bacteria. Certain spices will set off a bout of diverticulitis for me and too much bacteria will do the same. It puts street foods off limits for me. Sometimes I eat them anyway. Sometimes I get lucky and have no ill effects and sometimes I end up in hospital. It seems to depend on the general healthiness of my guts at any given time. It also takes a year to heal up the guts properly after a bout that results in hospitalization. During that time I have to be zealously conscious of what I eat.

So what does that have to do with white bread? At no time has white bread ever initiated a bout of diverticulitis "FOR ME". As in all things your mileage may vary. Each sufferer seems to have different trigger foods but when the inflammation is at its worse then I can't keep white bread or anything else inside me.

 

I am sorry about your experiences with this illness - it seems a terrible thing to have to go through.

I am interested to know how you know you have "too much bacteria". Is it a feeling, a particular symptom or the result of a test?

 

It is a feeling.

It started when I had a bad bout of this ailment and I found out (through trial and error) that I could eat certain foods when they were very fresh, but leave them in the fridge overnight and I'd have a bad reaction eating the next day. I even tried freezing the leftovers and thawing them for a "tv dinner" the next day but that also gave me a bad reaction. It was interesting that I could buy a Swanson TV dinner and it was so sterilized that it did not get my guts broiling but any homemade tv dinners did. The only solution I could figure was that bacteria grows on food and the same food that is good fresh will go through me in about 20 minutes if eaten later on.

Same situation when I moved to the Philippines. I could eat many Filipino foods if they were made in my kitchen, with fresh ingredients and prepared carefully, but if I ordered that stuff in a restaurant or had it at a party or a street food vendor it goes right through me. The only difference is the one food is prepared fresh and in a clean environment, the other has the same ingredients with less care taken in the preparation or in how long it sits around.

Is there another possible conclusion I may have missed, other than bacteria growing on the food? Care must be taken to differentiate good bacteria from bad as yogurt does not bother me when I am not having an acute attack.

EDIT: I have edited this to add there are some foods that can sit around for a long time and still not bring on an attack. Bread and cheese are two such foods and ham is another than can sit in the fridge for a few days without bringing on any symptoms. Cheese can grow moldy and still not bother me but the ham will affect me after a couple/few days. After my first attack, many years ago, my guts were in such bad shape that about the only food I could eat was a ham and cheese sandwich or a peanut butter sandwich. Almost everything else would pass right through. I was like that for about a year before my guts healed up enough to start eating normally again.

 

The nutrition advice I have run across which makes the most sense to me is to retreat to a diet which stuffs the most nutrition on your place for the least space and then slowly add other foods back. If you start noticing problems, then you might have an allergy to something you added back.

I have a friend who had some weird issues with his throat and it wasn't until his mid-30's (and loads of consultations with doctors) that he found the issue to be caused by an allergy with eggs. Some allergies aren't obvious. They can cause issues which you have assigned to being normal and livable.

Foods containing gluten (such as white bread) have been in the spotlight lately for all sorts of issues. True or not (nutrition is a problem area of science) I believe that removing things that are well known for causing allergies and then adding them back over time is a good move. Maybe this is easier said than done though, if you removed everything which caused allergies to some people then you wouldn't have much choice left over.