Diet, ageing and genetic factors in the pathogenesis of diverticular disease

Table 1 Summary of electrophysiology studies in diverticular disease (DD)

Study material	Treatment	Response	Study details	Reference
Colonic longitudinal smooth muscle	Relaxative cannabinoid agonists	Decreased relaxation in specimens vs controls	Study performed on diverticulitis specimens vs colorectal cancer controls	Guagnini et al[46]
Colonic longitudinal smooth muscle	Nitroprusside, relaxative agent	Decreased relaxation in specimens vs controls	Study performed on 10 DD patients vs 10 colorectal cancer controls	Golder et al[21]
Colonic circular smooth muscle	Contractionary, cholinergic stimuli	Decreased induction of contractionary waves in cases vs earlier data on "normal" patients	Material obtained from 12 patients, 10 of whom exhibited ‘abnormal responses’ Multiple samples from the same patient showed site specific differences	Huizinga et al[103]
Left-sided colonic smooth muscle	Nitric oxide, relaxative agent	Decreased relaxation in cases vs controls	Left-sided DD 9 patients, vs 16 left-sided colon cancer controls	Tomita et al[52]
Colonic longitudinal and circular muscle	Contractory acetylcholine	Increased contractionary response in DD cases vs controls	20 subjects with rectal tumours, 10 cases and 10 controls	Golder et al[51]
	Contractory tachykinin receptor antagonists	Higher active and resting stress in DD cases