Diverticular disease of the colon.

Diverticular disease is basically a disorder of muscle function, particularly of the sigmoid colon. Increase in tone of the muscle layers of the bowel with consequent muscular thickening of a characteristic pattern. The thickening is not a true cellular hypertrophy and there is no evidence of muscle cell hyperplasia. The formation of diverticula are distributed along the points of greatest weakness in the bowel wall, namely where the blood supply penetrates, suggests that pulsion plays a major role in their development. The inflammation in diverticular disease is purely a complication of the diverticulosis.