Where your DNA places you among other people, and the studies behind it.
Not tailored to your result, and not medical advice
Favor Cereal And Fruit Fiber: Higher fiber intake produces bulkier, softer stool that moves through the colon with less straining, which is the long-standing hypothesis for how it protects against diverticular disease. A meta-analysis of five prospective cohorts covering 865,829 people and 19,282 cases found each additional 10 g of fiber a day was associated with a 26% lower risk. Cereal fiber and fruit fiber showed the clearest associations, while vegetable fiber did not reach statistical significance. These are observational cohorts, so overall diet quality and other habits may explain part of the effect. European Journal of Nutrition (PMC)
Keep Eating Nuts And Popcorn: People with diverticula were told for decades to avoid nuts, corn, seeds and popcorn, on the theory that hard fragments lodge in the pouches and trigger inflammation. In 47,228 men followed for 18 years, with 801 cases of diverticulitis and 383 diverticular bleeds, none of these foods raised risk. Popcorn intake was associated with a lower rate of diverticulitis (hazard ratio 0.72) and nuts pointed the same way (0.80). The authors concluded the avoidance advice should be reconsidered, though seeds were not analyzed as a separate category. JAMA (PubMed)
Trade Red Meat For Poultry: Among 46,461 men followed from 1986 to 2012, those eating the most total red meat had a 58% higher rate of diverticulitis than those eating the least, and risk climbed up to roughly six servings a week before levelling off. Unprocessed red meat drove the association, while processed red meat showed no significant trend. Substituting poultry or fish for one daily serving of unprocessed red meat was associated with a 20% lower risk. Higher poultry and fish intake on its own carried no increase in risk. Gut (PubMed)
Stack Five Lifestyle Factors Together: A 2025 analysis pooling four long-running US cohorts, about 180,000 people in the three largest, with a replication in a hospital biobank, scored five habits: never smoking, a body mass index in the healthy range, being in the top 40% for physical activity, being in the top 40% for fiber intake, and being in the lowest 40% for red meat. Participants meeting all five had roughly half the rate of diverticulitis of those meeting none (hazard ratio 0.50). The size of that difference was similar in people at low, middle and high polygenic risk, with no significant interaction between the two. The authors estimated 23% to 42% of cases across those groups were attributable to lifestyle. Gut (PMC)
Know What Fiber Cannot Prevent: Fiber is linked to fewer attacks of diverticulitis, but it does not appear to stop the pouches forming in the first place. Diverticula develop at fixed weak points where small blood vessels, the vasa recta, pierce the muscle layer of the colon wall, and the narrow sigmoid segment generates the highest internal pressure. Colonoscopy-based studies have found no protective effect of a high-fiber diet against asymptomatic diverticulosis, and some found the highest fiber group had more pouches rather than fewer. Prevalence also rises steeply with age, so the honest position is that having diverticula is largely not lifestyle-preventable, even though the inflammatory episodes appear to be partly modifiable. Clinics in Colon and Rectal Surgery (PMC)
How much of this is genetic?
Genetics explains 53% of why people differ in this trait. The rest is environment, daily habits and chance.
Heritability estimate: Strate et al. 2013, Gastroenterology
Background and further reading
Diverticula are small sac-like outpouchings of the inner colon lining that push through the muscular wall of the large intestine. Simply having them is called diverticulosis, which is extremely common and usually silent. The condition becomes clinically important when diverticula cause symptoms (diverticular disease) or become inflamed and infected (diverticulitis), which can produce abdominal pain, fever, and changes in bowel habits, and occasionally bleeding. Prevalence rises sharply with age: diverticulosis is uncommon before 40 but is found in more than half of people over 60 in Western countries. In Western populations the diverticula are concentrated in the sigmoid (left) colon, whereas right-sided disease is more common in East Asian populations.
Genetic Basis: Diverticular disease was long viewed as a purely lifestyle-driven condition, but twin and family studies show a substantial inherited component, with heritability estimated at roughly 50%, and about 53% in a large population-based twin study. Genome-wide association studies of large biobank cohorts have identified dozens of risk loci that point to the biology of the colon wall rather than to diet alone. Many implicated genes relate to connective tissue and extracellular matrix, smooth muscle and neuromuscular function, and epithelial integrity, consistent with the idea that inherited differences in the strength and motility of the colonic wall influence who develops diverticula. Loci near genes such as ARHGAP15, COLQ, and FAM155A have been repeatedly associated with the trait.
Environmental Factors: Lifestyle and environment strongly modify whether diverticula form and whether they cause problems. A diet low in fiber has traditionally been linked to diverticular disease, and higher fiber intake, particularly from fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, is associated with lower risk. Obesity, physical inactivity, and smoking are each associated with increased risk of diverticulitis and its complications, while regular vigorous physical activity appears protective. Diets high in red meat and frequent use of NSAIDs and opioids have also been associated with higher risk of diverticulitis. The historical advice to avoid nuts, seeds, and popcorn has not been supported by evidence and is no longer recommended.
The published research behind your score, and the variants it draws on.
6 published scores from 4 studies
The diverticular disease score combines 6 polygenic scores drawn from 4 published studies.
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Content updated August 2026.
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