ArticleClinical gastroenterology and hepatology : the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association2022
Frequency of Bowel Movements and Risk of Diverticulitis.
Article in Clinical gastroenterology and hepatology : the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 15 citations in OpenAlex.
- Diverticular Perforation with Normal C-reactive Protein in a Patient with Neuromyelitis Optica Spectrum Disorder Receiving Satralizumab.Internal medicine (Tokyo, Japan) · 2026Article
- Risk Prediction in Diverticulitis.Clinics in colon and rectal surgery · 2025Review
- Diet and Risk for Incident Diverticulitis in Women : A Prospective Cohort Study.Annals of internal medicine · 2025Article
- Bowel movement alterations predict the severity of diverticular disease and the risk of acute diverticulitis: a prospective, international study.Intestinal research · 2025Article
- Post-marketing safety concerns with pirfenidone and nintedanib: an analysis of individual case safety reports from the FDA adverse event reporting system database and the Japanese adverse drug event report databases.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
13 authors at 6 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveThe etiology of diverticulitis is poorly understood. The long-held belief that constipation and low-fiber diet are risk factors for diverticulosis has recently been challenged by studies that suggest that more frequent bowel movements predispose to diverticulosis. We aim to prospectively explore the association between bowel movement frequency and incident diverticulitis.
designWe studied participants of the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) and Health Professional Follow-up Study (HPFS). Participants' medical history, lifestyle factors and diet were used in Cox proportional hazards regression models to estimate multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios(HRs) and 95% confidence intervals(CI).
resultsIn the NHS during over 24 years of follow-up encompassing 1,299,922 person-years, we documented 5,214 incident cases of diverticulitis, and in the HPFS over 14 years encompassing 368,661 person-years of follow-up, we documented 390 incident cases of diverticulitis. We observed an inverse association between the frequency of bowel movements and risk of diverticulitis. In the NHS, compared with women who had daily bowel movements, those with more than once daily bowel movements had a HR of 1.30 (95% CI, 1.19, 1.42) and those with less frequent bowel movements had a HR of 0.89 (95% CI, 0.82, 0.95; p-trend < 0.0001). In the HPFS, the corresponding HRs were 1.29 (95% CI, 1.04, 1.59) and 0.61 (95% CI, 0.36, 1.03; p-trend = 0.003). The association between bowel movements and diverticulitis was not modified by categories of age, BMI, physical activity, laxative use or fiber intake.
conclusionMore frequent bowel movements appear to be a risk factor for subsequent diverticulitis both in men and women. Further studies are needed to understand the potential mechanisms that may underlie this association.
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